Kunai and Chain
by The Insane and The Famous
Summary: Iruka gave Naruto his first bit of real world advice telling him that as long as he was underestimated, he could always come out on top. Add to the mix Naruto's neat ability as an Uzumaki to form chains and a lot of stuff happens. Featuring a Naruto with the attitude of a champion and the brains of a rock. You never know what will happen when dealing with the village idiot.
1. Chapter 1

Kunai and Chain Chapter 1

Iruka gave Naruto his first bit of real world advice telling him that as long as he was underestimated, he could always come out on top. Add to the mix Naruto's neat ability as an Uzumaki to form chains and a lot of stuff happens. Featuring a Naruto with the attitude of a champion and the brains of a rock. You never know what will happen when dealing with the village idiot.

o.o.o

It was a week before the graduation exam from the academy, and Iruka gave the students the entire week off beforehand in order for them to get more practice in on whatever they needed to.

This was fortunate for Naruto because he really needed to work on his clone.

The blonde was quite confident in his abilities expanding past the simple clone. He had a better henge than everyone in the class. He even created his own pervert slaying jutsu using only the henge that seemed to work wonders on a target audience.

Naruto was just as good with the kawarimi if not better. Most academy students could only pull a few replacements at a time before completely exhausting their reserves but Naruto could go on for hours without feeling strain. He actually once went to a training ground and replaced himself with the same piece of wood hundreds of times in a row to see what his limit was at. As soon as Naruto breached the 300 mark, he lost interest, not even feeling a significant drain on his chakra.

When it came to clones though, he was shit. There was no nice way to put it. Clones were his downfall. His one worst jutsu. The bane of his existence. Clones had already stalled Naruto's graduation from the academy by two whole years because he couldn't make a single lifelike clone.

He struggled more than all of the other academy students combined. He was an orphan, he had no money, and for some reason all of the villagers of Konoha hated him.

Everyone else had a family or at least some resources to learn from, but Naruto only had the academy.

That was why he treasured his relationship with Iruka. The instructor basically was Naruto's only source of information on the shinobi arts.

That meant the whatever Iruka said, those words were law. And Iruka said he was absolutely awful at the clone technique.

Naruto focused his mind to remember what his instructor had told him just the previous day.

"What was that Iruka said? I need good chakra control to make a clone. Okay, so let me think. What are some good chakra control exercises. Didn't Iruka-sensei say something about sticking to walls and trees to climb them?" Naruto mumbled as he made his way to the training field.

Naruto reminded himself of what he heard in class a couple weeks ago and applied himself to figuring it out.

Naruto just finished going over the basics of the exercise in his head when he entered the designated and approached the edge of the clearing where the forest began.

Naruto approached a tree in the training ground thinking to himself. "What if I start by trying to stick my hands to the tree instead of my feet. Start small."

He placed his hand against the bark of a large oak tree and focused on getting control of his internal chakra system.

Naruto knew he was going to need barely any chakra to do this so he applied the bare minimum…

And his hand didn't stick to the tree at all.

"Oh, a little more chakra I guess" Naruto mumbled, attempting to fix his miscalculation.

He applied a little more chakra to his hand, this time it stuck to the tree, but not firmly enough stop him from pulling it off with ease..

"Still too little chakra, Hmm" Naruto decided to pull out all the stops.

He placed his right hand against the tree and made a half ram seal with his free hand in order to channel his chakra with some more control.

'Wow, that's actually sticking really well.' Naruto thought.

He stopped channeling the chakra and tried to pull his hand away, but it wouldn't budge.

'What the hell is going on.'

Putting his entire body weight behind him, Naruto began to tug to pull his hand off. The harder he pulled, the more his arm ached, but it didn't budge.

Naruto had nothing to fear, so he decided to put all his force behind one last yank.

With his legs up against the tree, doing all he could to free his hand Naruto pushed with his full might. Suddenly his arm freed itself and he was sent sprawling from the force of his detachment.

'That's the last time I try that exercise' Naruto groaned.

He opened his eyes, ready to dust himself off only to find a golden chain linking him from his hand to the spot where his hand was only moments earlier, with the tip being a golden kunai embedded in the bark.

"Huh. I made a chain. Okay. That's actually really awesome! Dattebayo I made a jutsu!" Naruto shouted to no one in particular.

Unbeknownst to Naruto, there was currently a massive chakra entity in his gut throwing a louder tantrum than any mortal had witnessed before. Kurama had just discovered that his second consecutive container had the power to restrain him and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

'How the FUCKING SHIT did I manage to be sealed in another brat that can use those DAMN CHAINS. Guess it's time to start getting on his good side.'

Naruto was looking at the chains, confused, but a little bit excited. He had no idea what they were, so it was time to experiment.

Naruto was having a blast. Twirling the chain and studying it closely. It was evident that it came from the chakra he applied to the tree so he did the only logical thing he could think of. Since it was made of chakra, Naruto tried to pull the chakra back into his body.

If he could make the chain then there was no reason to think he couldn't make it go away? Right?

So Naruto focused his chakra and attempted to reel the chain back in through his tenketsu, but he did this a bit too well.

For the second time in minutes, Naruto sent himself flying. This time though, he launched himself headfirst at the tree he was attached to, the chain retracting back into his palm at an extremely high speed. Naruto's head hit the trunk and with a resounding crack and Naruto passed out at the foot of the tree.

o.o.o

Naruto regained consciousness in a in a dimly lit and dank sewer. Slightly light headed and dizzy, the golden haired boy pushed himself off of his hands and knees to find himself facing an enormous fox behind monstrous metal bars.

"Damn my head hurts. Wait. What the fuck… is that…?" Naruto spoke to himself, not expecting a response from the large orange animal.

I am Kurama, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the nine tailed bijuu the chakra entity growled.

"Ohh shit. You died like twelve years ago. DAMN IT DOES THAT MEAN I'M DEAD TOO. I didn't even become a genin." Naruto wept with anime tears streaming down his face.

The kyuubi would have facepalmed right then if he had a palm in the first place. 'Why do I always get stuck with the village idiot.'

Listen up gaki. You're not dead. We are in your psyche because you're dumbass knocked yourself unconscious playing with the adamantine chains. And i'm here because I was sealed in you minutes after you were born.

"You call me the dumbass but you're the one sitting in a cage. Hah. Wait. What?"

You heard me. I am made entirely of chakra, meaning I can't be killed. Not even by the damned yondaime. I can only be sealed away. And the yondaime decided to seal me into you.

"Wait… so you're telling me that the kyuubi, the enormous monster that decimated part of Konoha twelve years ago, was stopped by me? As a baby? DATTEBAYO! I knew I was awesome. I'm a damn hero." Naruto replied, already full of himself for completing the task that the yondaime had entrusted him with.

You're an idiot is what you are.

"Why so harsh kyuubi-chan?" Naruto cried with fake anime tears.

I AM THE KING OF THE BIJUU YOU WILL RESPECT ME.

"Alright alright, calm down furball. But you're seriously a king?"

Umm. Unofficially, yes, I would say that I am.

"Hah, king my ass." Then Naruto's demeanor changed as he thought of something. "Wait. Kurama. I have a question."

What?

"Why did the fourth seal you in me and not anybody other kid off the streets?

Well, there's the fact that only an Uzumaki has strong enough vitality to survive the sealing. Your genes are perfect for restraining a bijuu.

"Oh wow."

It could be because I was sealed in your mother for a couple decades so he was certain you could take the strain.

"Wait. M-my m-mother?"

But it was probably because he trusted his son to hold me more than any other kid off the streets.

Naruto just stood there with a blank expression on his face, his mind refusing to put two and two together. "Huh?"

Do I have to draw it out for you gaki... Kurama asked, with a continued blank expression as a response. Why do I even ask… Your father was the one to seal me into you, meaning yes, your father was the yondaime hokage, Minato Namikaze.

Naruto's eyes widened at this revelation. All orphans spent countless days and nights imagining who their parents were, and pretending that they were great people.

But Naruto just learned that his father was the fourth Hokage, the hero of the leaf, and frequently thought of as the most talented shinobi alive in his time. Not even in his wildest dreams did he even think that it could be possible.

"T-the Yondaime was m-my father?" Naruto said, barely able to contain his emotions.

Kurama wasn't sure how Naruto would react to this. Normally, a child should be angry at whoever placed a burden upon them, but Naruto's face was clouded by so many mixed emotions, none of which seemed to be anger.

The fox watched as the blonde boy in front of him began to tear up at the thought of having a father. Naruto took a seat on the flooded ground of the sewer, maintaining silence for a while as he processed. It was a lot to process.

"If you knew my father then do you also know my kaa-san?" Naruto spoke up after a couple minutes.

Yes. Your mother was Kushina Uzumaki, my previous container and the only other shinobi to have dense enough chakra to create Adamantine Sealing Chains, the chain you produced on that tree.

The emotions on Naruto's face were a jumbled mess for a bit as the giant entity watched his container, attempting to get a read on him.

After a short while, Kurama started noticing a few emotions showing more and more prominence. Happiness, followed by determination were the main two that shone through.

"I have a family. A real mom and dad. I have a legacy." Naruto suddenly broke the silence, his voice being a little scratchy betraying how emotional he really felt at the moment. "Mom, Dad, I'll make you proud. I promise." He whispered to himself before turning to the enormous orange fox that had been observing him up to this point. Naruto's eyes scanned over the fox, as if he was assessing him, taking in every detail.

How Naruto could have not known that there was a couple story tall chakra monster sealed in his gut was beyond him, because now that he was face to face with the fox, it seemed as if it were the most powerful and most significant thing in the world. Nothing that Naruto had ever felt in the outside world compared to the sheer power that radiated from the beast, but he refused to flinch under the fox's gaze.

"Thank you, Kurama." Naruto finally said, surprising the beast.

Don't thank me for this boy. To me it is just meaningless information.

Nevertheless, the kyuubi found himself astonished that Naruto would talk to him as an equal of sorts.

Finally recovering from the life changing news that was dumped on him minutes before, Naruto set his resolve.

He had a legacy to live up to, and therefore he wouldn't let them down.

"Kurama-san, I won't ask you why you attacked Konoha all those years ago, but my father entrusted me you keep you sealed so I won't be able to help you out if that's why you're helping me." Naruto said to his tenant, his voice filled with purpose and strength now.

Listen kit, I actually don't remember that day at all. I just remember being restrained in my previous container, your mother, when a man in an orange mask appeared. The next thing I remember, I was being pulled into you. Apparently I had freedom for some time outside of the seal, but I didn't even get to experience it because of a damn genjutsu by that masked man.

Naruto thought about the kyuubi's answer for a moment and nodded.

"Fair enough Kurama-san. In that case, I'll talk to you later." and with that he disappeared from his mindscape to leave the fox alone once more in the flooded sewer environment.

o.o.o

Naruto got up from the ground where he had passed out hours ago. The kyuubi had explained to him about his mother, his father, and the masked man that had set him upon the Leaf village twelve years ago. Naruto learned a lot in the talk he had with the fox.

'Thanks furball. Now back to work.'

Kurama had mentioned the chains in their encounter.

"Solid Adamantine Chains. Huh."

Naruto thought over why he wasn't able to produce these before. If he was really stumped about any details of how to use the chains, he could always ask Kurama. He seemed to recognize them and be pretty familiar with them. He even sounded a bit… fearful?... when he mentioned them.

Maybe before he never had enough chakra to produce the chains. Or maybe his chakra was just never dense enough to make solid chains. Whatever the reason was, it didn't stand in his way now.

Naruto spent the next four hours experimenting with the chains, and how they reacted to his chakra.

He noticed that in order to produce the chains in the first place, he had to almost pulse chakra out of his hand, as opposed to channeling chakra normally through his hand which he found he could still do without any issue.

The chains were actually really amazing.

After the initial hour of just experimenting with creating and drawing in the chains, Naruto discovered that he could control their motion as if they were an extension of his arm, but he had to concentrate and channel chakra into the chain. Naruto was having trouble keeping the chain from laying limp on the ground so it would still take a lot of practice before it had any real applications.

After the first hour, Naruto tried to test the properties of his chain. He tossed one end over a tree branch, grabbed the other end, and tried to pull himself up. He was happy to find that it could easily support his own weight. After finding that out, Naruto replicated what he did to the tree earlier by connecting the chain directly to a large boulder and dangling it from a heightened tree branch.

Naruto kept attempting with heavier and heavier boulders and found out, to his delight, that his arm would sooner get ripped off before the chains snapped.

Although he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or bad.

By the end of his four hour period, Naruto had figured out how to create, retract, attach, detach, and slightly control his chain.

Overall it was not a bad training session.

o.o.o

Naruto walked up the steps to the Hokage's office after training himself.

Naruto decided not to tell the hokage about his talk with the kyuubi or about discovering the Adamantine Sealing Chains. He wanted to hide his skills so that one day he could shock the world with his ability. He knew he could trust the Hokage, but he also wanted to surprise him one day with how awesome his shinobi repertoire was.

Before he could enter the Hokage's office, he was stopped by the secretary in front yet again.

"Do you have an appointment with Hokage-sama?" She asked, knowing full well that he didn't. Whenever he actually tried to make an appointment with jiji, the dang secretary always said that his time slots were all filled up.

"Jiji said that I could visit him whenever I wanted." The boy responded to the woman.

"Learn some respect gaki. It's Hokage-sama to you." She hissed at him just as the double doors behind her creaked open.

"Oh, it's quite alright Sina-chan. He is welcome whenever he sees fit. Just send him up whenever he is here." Hiruzen told his secretary.

"Sorry Hokage-sama, it won't happen again."

"Please don't apologize to me. And Naruto, come on in. What brings you by." The old Sarutobi asked Naruto as the doors closed behind the two.

"Nothing in particular Hokage-jiji. It's been awhile since you've taken me out for ramen though. I was getting worried that old age finally got to you." Joked the young prankster.

"Naruto, if anything is going to kill me, it will be mental degeneration from all this paperwork."

Naruto let out a little chuckle before getting to the point of his visit. "Actually jiji, I was wondering if you could help me out with something. I need kunai and shuriken for the academy, but stores are overcharging me for everything. I was wondering if you could come with me to make sure they are charging me a fair price."

"I wish I could but I'm stuck in this office for almost fifteen hours a day. I won't have time to go buy supplies with you today but I'll gladly come by a shop with you tomorrow. You're a registered academy student so you are allowed to buy from the shinobi shops. I'll show the place where I used to stock up on equipment."

Hiruzen couldn't help but smile when he saw the boy's face light up. Naruto reminded him so much of the yondaime in that his optimism in the face of hard times never wavered.

"Jiji if that shop is where you used to buy kunai then it has to be absolutely ancient now. Should I be scared my stuff will start falling apart on me?"

The old hokage only smiled and shook his head.

Naruto would grow up to be a fine shinobi some day.

o.o.o

Sasuke was glad for the break from the academy. He actually didn't learn anything at the place other than pointless history and other things of the sort. Instead, he would use this time so he could improve and impress the hell out of his sensei when the time came. The faster he moved up in the ranks, the more he could learn and the faster he would be able to catch up to Itachi.

Sasuke sat down, taking a break from his training. He spent all evening running through taijutsu katas and frankly he was exhausted. Not that he had time for exhaustion. He took a sip of water and looked over the jutsu scrolls he picked up from his clan library. He pretty much mastered the Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu (great fireball technique) and he could cast the jutsu multiple times in a fight without tiring out. The next jutsu on his list was the Hosenka no jutsu (phoenix flame technique).

Sasuke looked over the hand necessary hand seals and molded his hands into the seals, slowly at first then picking up the pace.

Rat, Tiger, Dog, Ox, Rabbit Tiger

"Hosenka no jutsu" He muttered under his breath. A hot tingling appeared at the back of his throat as chakra was built up, similar to how the Gokakyu no jutsu built up. Sasuke released a fireball, but the chakra remained in the back of his throat, so he continued spitting up fireballs, each the size of a watermelon from his seated position onto the field in front of him. He didn't even bother trying to aim for the practice dummies, knowing that first he had to feel out the jutsu and how it worked. After spitting out five successful fireballs, the built up chakra was all spent.

"Hn. No problem."

Sasuke felt a little light headed, but he was happy that he could successfully do the jutsu. While training this morning Sasuke had used the great fireball technique multiple times so it was no wonder that his chakra was running a bit low. He was at about a third of his chakra capacity, which according to his calculations was still much more than the average genin.

All the elemental jutsu training had significantly bolstered his reserves. Of course he couldn't simply spam jutsu. Nobody could do that. Not even jounin, or so he thought. But Sasuke was way ahead of the curve. He didn't have anyone to train him because his clan was gone so until he got a jounin instructor, Sasuke would do what he knew how to do best. Improve on the basics.

He drank a couple sips of water to rehydrate and got back to work.

Running low on chakra? Then he would just train his body to be stronger and faster. No jounin instructor necessary to teach him to do pushups and crunches.

Sasuke got to work again, putting on a weighted belt to increase resistance to his movements. That way he got stronger faster.

Nothing was standing in the way of his goals. Sasuke would be the strongest, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He had to kill Itachi. That wouldn't bring his parents, his friends, or his clan back, but it was necessary in order for him to restore his clan.

And it would also feel damn good.

o.o.o

Sasuke finally called it quits after his evening workout. He had gone through all of his family taijutsu katas at least a hundred times today. He was still a bit rusty on his taijutsu, but no amount of practice could change that. The Uchiha taijutsu style was such that relied on predictive movements and pivots to block attacks while expending the least amount of energy. The only fault with this was that half of the proficiency of the stance came from the use of the Sharingan. Without it, using this style of taijutsu was actually a handicap. The fact that Sasuke could still beat everyone in his Academy class with such a disadvantage showed just proficient the young prodigy was.

He entered the house in which he lived, at the center of the clan compound. The house was large, even for that of a clan head. The Uchiha clan was the most prominent clan in Konoha back before Itachi had decimated them all, and so Sasuke could guess he lived in one of the largest houses in the village. The clan council room was at the front of the house where the clan elders would meet and discuss various topics ranging from their status in the village to their monthly expenses on weaponry. This particular room hadn't been in use since many years ago when Sasuke was six. The entire room was covered in dust, not touched since before the massacre.

Actually, the entire house was covered in dust except for Sasuke and Itachi's childhood rooms. After the massacre and hundreds of counseling sessions the civilian council forced Sasuke to sit through to ensure he wouldn't lose his mind, the young emo had an outburst and set Itachi's room ablaze with the largest gokakyu no jutsu he had ever used.

The other room that wasn't covered in dust was Sasuke's room, and only because he needed a place to sleep. Sasuke spent his nights in his room but as soon as morning came, he refused to spend any more time in the house. It reminded him too much of his clan and how it used to be that it became unbearable if he was there for too long.

Sasuke walked into his kitchen and pulled some leftover food from his refrigerator and began to eat. As he ate, he also pulled out a scroll with the Uchiha insignia etched into the outside.

Sasuke unrolled the scroll expecting to find more katon techniques that he could learn but instead found it to be labeled Basic Chakra Control. Knowing you could never have too much of the basics, Sasuke opened the scroll and dove into the information. Tree climbing and water walking were under the basic chakra control exercises with a couple more easy manipulation exercises.

Sasuke's face broke into a confident smirk as he read into each of the exercises, determined to get started on it as soon as the next day.

o.o.o

The Yamanaka clan had thrown a get together of sorts with the Akimichi and Nara clans today. The party was held on the Yamanaka clan grounds. The Akimichi provided the food for the party. Nothing was expected of the Nara clan because frankly everybody was happy that they even decided to show up rather than sleep the day away.

Five hours after the start of the party, the drunk Nara and Akimichi clans began to leave one by one.

"What, everyone's leaving, troublesome. Choji, you should go home. I'm calling it a night too." Shikamaru said before rolling over on his side and closing his eyes. He was outside on the hill, meaning when he woke he would have a clear view of the clouds. What more can a man ever ask for.

"Alright Shika, I'll see you tomorrow I guess."

"I'll be here." The pineapple headed boy said to his best friend, praying that this would be the case tomorrow. His mom would probably come find him and make him train up a bit for the academy graduation exam.

'Hopefully that troublesome woman won't look for me here.' Shikamaru thought before doing what he did best. Falling asleep.

Choji stood up on the grass and walked back to his father's side, who was very drunk at this point and making a scene. Choza was walking out the front gate, with his left arm still in its large form from a arm wrestling match he participated in a couple hours back.

The Nara patriarch was being dragged out of the Yamanaka compound, his wife pulling him by the ear. It should be mentioned that Shikaku, despite being dragged by his ear, still appeared to be asleep. Many Nara males have aspired to reach this level of lethargy but it is said that only one or two every generation can perfect the art of sleeping to such a degree.

As the remaining members of the two clans filed out the gates, Inoichi stood at the entrance waving away their guests.

"Now time to clean all of this up." Sighed the patriarch, despondent upon the fact that he had to clean up after his lifelong friends.

"Daddy. I was wondering," The young blonde girl approached her father.

"Yes my princess?"

"Well, I was hoping you could start teaching me some new clan techniques. I mean I'm about to graduate the academy, I think I'm ready." Ino asked. "Besides, shintenshin no jutsu is useless in an actual fight." 'and it won't help me kick Sakura's ass in any spars' she added onto herself.

"Are you sure? Why are you bringing this up now?" The man questioned.

"No real reason, I just want to be a strong kunoichi!" She lied to her father with a smile on her face.

She's lying. The patriarch could easily tell. He was an interrogation specialist as a Yamanaka. It was basically his job to be able to tell when people lied.

'She just wants to get stronger so she can impress that Uchiha boy that she's been going on about. It's a shame I could never say no to my princess.' He concluded before responding to her. "You know that I need you to master shintenshin before I can start teaching you something else."

Ino visibly deflated at his statement.

"I'm sorry, but I won't teach you any offensive techniques until I'm sure you have enough chakra and mental control. These techniques are mentally draining and can leave you a soulless husk if misused. I would do anything for you but it's just too dangerous without proper control."

Ino's frown deflated even more after hearing this, disappointed with the wall she was hitting in her training. She wanted something flashy, that she was sure would get Sasuke -kun's attention.

Inoichi actually felt pained to see the look of disappointment on his daughter's face. That was one thing he never wanted to see. She was his princess and he spent his entire life spoiling her. Kami be damned if he stopped now.

"Ino- hime, how about I teach you something different. I was never that proficient with this, it was your mother's specialty, but I think you are ready to learn it."

Inoichi could have sworn that his daughter started glowing after hearing that statement, and he couldn't be happier that he had allowed her this happiness.

"Ino, I'm going to teach you the Yamanaka clan's signature sensing technique."

Ino face faulted after hearing this. 'That's not flashy at all. What on earth could I use that. Wait, I could use it to find Sasuke whenever I have free time. Then we could finally go on that date together! I'll always be one step ahead of forehead!'

Ino's frown turned into a grin in a split second and she hugged her dad.

"Yes daddy that would be perfect!

He really could never deny her of anything.

"Thank you thank you soo so so much tou-san, you won't regret this, I promise! We can start tomorrow!" Ino practically yelled before she gave Inoichi a quick hug and dashed off to her room.

"Wait, aren't you going to help clean up?" Inoichi shouted, with no response from the girl. "Ahh whatever, it's not like she would have helped anyways." Inoichi muttered to himself before he began to clean up.

o.o.o

At around noon the next day, Naruto headed out to the Hokage tower in order to get the Sandaime to purchase his new equipment.

Hiruzen immediately set out with Naruto in tow for the weapon shop he mentioned on the previous day.

Many civilians and shinobi alike gave Naruto and the Hokage questioning glances, many of them undoubtedly thinking that the leader of the village was taking the brat to be disciplined. Naruto did what he often did best, and ignored every glance that was cast his way.

The civilians did not have the balls, for lack of a better term, to say anything hateful toward the boy so they just returned to what they were doing after Hiruzen and the boy passed.

Hiruzen stopped at a door waiting for Naruto to catch up to him. "Alright, here we are. This place is the best when it comes to shinobi supplies. I guarantee it. Come on in."

The bell connected to the door chimed as the two stepped inside the shop.

"H-hokage-sama. Welcome to my father's weapon shop." said the young girl with buns that stood behind the counter. She appeared to be only a year or two older than Naruto was, and she seemed to be in awe of the hokage showing up at her doorstep.

"Ahh, Tenten-chan, I see you've taken over woking at the your father's shop. How is he doing?" The hokage asked, engaging the girl in conversation.

"He is well Hokage-sama. Thank you for asking. May I ask what brings you by?" She responded, getting over her brief stutter.

"Well, I came here often when I was still an active shinobi and your father took really good care of me. I was hoping that you could be so kind as to give young Naruto-kun here the same treatment." The Hokage replied, pushing the young academy student in front of him.

"Of course Hokage-sama. Naruto, if you would like to follow me. I'm assuming you're here to purchase some kunai and shuriken."

"Hai." Naruto responded, not really sure what else he should say as he followed her to one of the back rooms.

Naruto was surprised with Tenten because she was being nice to him. Actually, she was being very nice to him. Naruto thought back for a moment and was disappointed to conclude that no shopkeeper had ever been this kind to him before.

Then again, most owners didn't even let Naruto into their shops so there weren't many left to consider.

It took only a few moments for Tenten to find a nice set for him, and Naruto was more than happy when she let him remove them from the case and try them out. As he was inspecting the kunai and shuriken, Tenten asked him about his connection with the Hokage, which was followed up by a nice conversation. He told her about being an orphan and how the villagers treated him poorly, so Jiji helped out when he could. In turn he learned that she was also an orphan and that she was a year out of the academy.

After he was satisfied with the kunai, Naruto and Tenten returned to the counter where the Hokage was waiting for them.

"Alright old-man, I got them." Naruto told him with a large grin on his face.

Tenten was absolutely shocked that Naruto would be so blunt and informal with the Hokage, and her facial expressions showed it.

"Haha, umm so Naruto-san. Could I interest you in any other weapons than the standard shinobi set?"

Naruto's face twisted from an ecstatic smile to a slight frown when Hiruzen cut in before he could express his approval of her idea. "No that's quite alright Tenten-chan. Naruto needs to work on one thing at a time. No point in learning something new if you haven't yet mastered the basics."

Naruto let out an exasperated sigh and looked up to Tenten behind the counter. "Yeah so I guess that's it. How much is it gonna cost me. I've been saving money in gama-chan for months for these." Naruto said, looking very apprehensive as he pulled out his toad wallet.

Tenten read off the price displayed on the register, "560 ryo for that set please."

Naruto was extremely surprised with the price, but before he got bewilderment at how little she was charging, the Hokage tapped his arm signaling to put it down. "I'll take care of this one for you Naruto-kun. Consider it an investment in the future of Konoha. Now I have to get back to my office as soon as possible so I hope you can find your way home Naruto-kun."

Hiruzen pulled out some bills and handed them to Tenten before she stored them in the cash register. Afterwards, he immediately turned around and headed out, mumbling about 'damn paperwork' and about how 'no amount of money, fame, or respect would make the job worth it'.

Naruto exited the shop soon after the Hokage, happy with his haul from the weapons store. He made a mental note to return to this store as often as possible if only to visit Tenten.

She was genuinely nice, and Naruto could not afford to miss out on making a friend.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Review, Follow, Favorite, and Review again.

Guys, I fucked up.

I literally rewrote the beginning of this fic entirely because I realized it was shit and it didn't fit into where I was planning to go with it.

The one big change in the storyline is that Naruto has chains… which if you haven't noticed are the baddest most terrifyingly dexterous ability out there, other than shadow clones of course.

Also, he's a dumbass. No amount of circumstances can change that. Naruto has no brains whatsoever except for when he flies by the seat of his pants. That's the

only time Naruto has any semblance of a brain.

Hardheaded as ever, Naruto will be stronger in this fic than he was in the manga/anime. Then again it's pretty damn hard for him to be weaker than in the manga.

It's as if kishimoto wanted to make him an underdog or something… nahhh.

Anyways, here comes chain Naruto.

Glory be to the log.

DATTEBAYO MOTHERFUCKERS.


	2. Chapter 2

**Kunai and Chain 2**

Kunai and Chain Chapter 2

Iruka gave Naruto his first bit of real world advice telling him that as long as he was underestimated, he could always come out on top. Add to the mix Naruto's neat ability as an Uzumaki to form chains and a lot of stuff happens. Featuring a Naruto with the attitude of a champion and the brains of a rock. You never know what will happen when dealing with the village idiot.

o.o.o

The entire week prior to the graduation exam passed rather quickly. Naruto spent the entire week focusing on his chakra chains, indulging his every curiosity on them. As he used them more and more, he actually did show substantial improvement.

Naruto spent an entire day using the chains as a lasso grabbing any trees in the vicinity.

The next day was spent almost exclusively on Naruto swinging between trees, using his chains instead of vines.

Granted by the end of that day Naruto had countless bumps on his head, but it too was beginning to pay off as by the end of his tiresome day, he could swing between several trees consecutively before adding another tally to his list of concussions.

Another half a day was wasted on the fact that Naruto spent hours at a time begging the kyuubi for advice on using the chains, to which the fox responded by feighning ignorance on the topic.

Damn fox.

Naruto then spent two days trying to apply the chains to any pranks he could, which turned out much worse than expected.

Every time Naruto attempted to use a chain to swipe something with any semblence of stealth, his chain would loudly clatter causing him to get caught without fail.

On the other hand, whenever Naruto used the chains to escape from pursuers by swinging from trees or pulling himself up to rooftops, he would fail miserably and end up with his face in the mud.

Chains, atleast for now, were not a good tool for his pranking.

Eventually the time came when Naruto had to return to the academy for his graduation exam.

Naruto walked into the academy and made it all the way to his seat before he started yelling.

Today was a big day for Naruto. He tried taking the exam before in order to

graduate early but every single time without fail, he would mess up at some point or another. He HAD to pass this time in order to be in the graduating class with

other students his age.

Otherwise he would just be held back and that would be humiliating.

"I'm gonna pass this time! Dattebayo Iruka-sensei. I learned so much this week. Bring it on!" Naruto enthusiastically shouted as Iruka handed out the written portion of the graduation exam.

Naruto got his exam from Iruka and read the first question to himself.

'How many bijuu are there?'

'Wow.' Naruto thought to himself, 'This actually applies directly to me and I still don't know.'

Naruto started worrying about the possibility that he actually could fail the exam.

Then an idea popped into his head.

Naruto drifted off into his subconscious into a dank sewer. He looked up to the fox behing the bars only to find him sleeping.

"Hey Kyuubi. Kurama. Psst, furball wake up!" He shouted to the giant fox.

" **What do you want kit?** " Kurama replied with a slight growl. Clearly he wasn't pleased about the boy waking him from his nap, but in the spirit of getting on Naruto's good side, Kurama decided to indulge him.

Naruto watched as the chakra entity rose into a sitting position after shaking of the slumber he had just been in. Why did the Kyuubi even need to sleep. According to the fox, it wasn't technically a living thing as it was a body of chakra tied to a conscience. Additionally, it's not like the fox ever did… well… anything. Why would he need to rest if he was always resting by doint nothing.

'Lazy bastard'

"I was just wondering. How many of you are there exactly?" Naruto said, getting on with his question.

" **... what?** "

"Like how many bijuu are there."

Kurama sighed at the ignorance of his jailer. " **Nine. There are nine frieking bijuu. How on earth do you not know that?** " You had to be seriously stupid to be that oblivious, especially since there was a bijuu sealed inside the kid.

'Damn natural selection did not do a good job with this kid.' The kyuubi thought.

Naruto didn't even answer the question. With an "Okay thanks" and the wave of his hand, he left his mindscape to write the answer to the first question.

Alright, next question.

'Who were the two founders of Konoha?'

'Arghhh damn it, I don't know that one either.'

Naruto's face adopted a mischevious grin as he slid back into his mindscape.

"Kurama, you're old right?"

"…"

"Heheh. Hell yeah."

o.o.o

After the written portion of the exams were all collected, Iruka began calling each of the students up one by one for the ninjutsu portion of the exam. These 'academy three' ninjutsu were debatably the most important things that that the students learned in the academy due to the fact that basically all ninjutsu that someone could use stemmed off of these three jutsu, or used similar concepts.

Because of the importance and the stress placed upon the academy three, the inability to perform one of them to a threshold level meant instant failure of the exam.

This rule was meant generally for the civilian students that were unlikely to ever develop large enough chakra reserves to do three low level jutsu in a row without passing out.

Basically it was meant to weed out those people that weren't meant to be there.

Since the level of control necessary was pretty low anyways, it didn't really disadvantage many students that were on the other end of the spectrum with innately high chakra reserves.

Unfortunately for Naruto, he was not a normal student. As an Uzumaki, Naruto due to his blood had higher than average chakra reserves. Even without the Kyuubi sealed within him, he would have had as much chakra as a rookie chunnin or atleast a seasoned genin.

When you factor in that Naruto had the largest chakra entity known to the elemental nations sealed inside him, that pushed his own reserves to match that of a seasoned jounin.

The academy three barely required any chakra control, but even so, Naruto's natural large reserves caused his control to shrink way below the threshhold needed. Especially for the clone technique.

Now that Naruto knew about the kyuubi, he understood why he always had trouble with the clone technique.

As Naruto made his way to the front of the classroom to carry out his test, a thought hit him.

'Oh shit. With all the excitement about the chains I can make, I completely forgot to train my chakra control!'

"Alright Naruto, part one of three. I want you to replace yourself with the log I have positioned at the side of the room."

Naruto took a calming breath. 'This is the easy part' he said to himself, attempting to calm his nerves. "Kawarimi no jutsu" he shouted as he replaced himself with the block of wood that was on the side. 'One down, two to go.'

"Next up, I want to see a transformation into anyone you see fit."

"Henge" Naruto shouted once more as the image surrounding his body shifted into a picture perfect replica of Iruka with only one key difference. Iruka's head was four times the size of his actual head, resembling the way he looked when he actually yelled at the students. This reflected the way Naruto percueved Iruka because Iruka spent such a large portion of the time he was with Naruto yelling at him.

Iruka simply sighed and said "Moving on. Now I need to see a clone and you're done."

Naruto took another deep breath, taking his time before he attempted this one. There was no way he was gonna mess this up though. He'd come way to far to just call it quits now.

'It's now or never. I'm not gonna mess this up this time. Dattebayo.'

"Bunshin no jutsu"

The entire observing class broke out into laughter.

'Shit.'

o.o.o

Naruto sat on the swing, observing all the students that passed interacting with their parents. Everyone had someone else to hold the, and to love them.

Even Sasuke, who was also an orphan had people coming to congratulate him on his success.

All of the parents were just so damn proud, and it sickened him.

It sickened him to know that he finally discovered who his parents were and he couldn't even graduate from the academy.

His father, the yondaime hokage, had a failure for a son. There was no way he could be poud of him. Proue of anything that he did. Naruto was just sick of it. He wished that he had a chance, any chance at all to redeem himself. A chance to still pass the exam.

Just then Mizuki approached him.

"Hey Naruto, if you still want to be a genin listen up because this is your chance."

"I'm listening."

o.o.o

Later that night, Iruka discovered Naruto in the forest on the outskirts of Konoha.

"Kage Bunshin No Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)."

A clone popped into existance, an exact replica of Naruto next to him.

"Haha yeah I got it! Dattebayo!"

Naruto then took notice of Iruka before his face brightened even more.

"Hey Iruka-sensei! I did it! Does this mean I pass the graduation exam?"

Iruka's demeanor shifted from angry and peeved to confused. What on earth was Naruto talking about. Why would stealing a forbidden scroll entail passing the genin exam? And did Naruto actually use a clone technique? That was just bat shit crazy. He had to be seeing things. The only techniques actually noted on the scroll were high level forbidden techniques. There was no way Naruto would be able to master a higher level clone technique in a mere hour after acquiring the scroll if he hadn't been able to learn a normal clone technique after years of tiring tutelage.

"Naruto, what are you talking about? And what are you doing with tha-" Iruka started saying before he was cut off.

"Hahahah! The brat actually did it. I'm surprised, I didn't think someone as stupid as you could actually steal the scroll of seals, but that just goes to show how much this village has fallen." Mizuki shouted from up in the branches of a tree before throwing a large shuriken directly at Naruto, meant to eliminate the boy once and for all. This did not go as Mizuki had planned because Iruka dove in front of Naruto, taking the shuriken to the back to save his student.

"Iruka-sensei! Noooo!" Was all Naruto managed to shout as he began to choke up over the man who had just taken a shuriken in the back for him.

"Naruto, run. Get an ANBU, or a jonin, or anyone. Let them know what happened. Leave me here and go." Iruka instructed his favorite student, hoping the boy that he'd grown fond of over the years would be able to get away without too much issue.

Instead he of Naruto running, Iruka was surprised to see the boy step in front of him with a drawn kunai.

"Naruto, what are you doing!? He's a chunnin. He'll kill you. Run you idiot!" Iruka pleaded, praying that the last thing he saw wouldn't be Naruto dying in front of him.

"SHUT UP!" Naruto practically yelled. "I can't believe you would lecture every other day about the importance of the Will of Fire and the just expect me to leave you here." Naruto continued with a growl. "I won't leave you behind. Not if it means that this teme will kill you and get away with it."

His sensei was in danger. One of the few people in his life that ever gave him a chance and treated him with kindness. He would be damned if he let anybody harm someone that he loved.

"Hahaha. You're on braindead gaki if you think you can take me!" Mizuki shouted,

jumping down from the branch where he was standing. "Actually, since I'm leaving this dump, I'll let you in on a little secret. Did you ever wonder why everyone hates you in the village. Why their eyes follow you without any trust. Why they call you 'demon' behind your back. That's because you are!" He yelled with a maniacal laugh. "They Kyuubi no kitsune is sealed within you and so I'll do the village one last favor and finish you off."

Naruto was stunned. This bastard knew about the Kyuubi? The entire village knew about the Kyuubi? How the hell is it that he found out a week ago and everybody else already knew.

"Listen up teme." Naruto started with a snarl after a moment. "I know all about the pain in my ass furball stuck inside me, not that it matters to you, but I'm not the fox. I don't know what kind of fucked up world you live in, but it just seems like common sense for you not to piss of a demon. Because if you piss of a demon…"

His eyes then adopted a red hue as he instinctively pulled on the kyuubi's chakra due to his anger.

"It might end up looking something like this. Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

With that statement every single crevice withing two hundred yards was filled with red-eyed clones. Every tree branch, every ditch, and every possible open space was occupied with a clone of Naruto that flashed a feral grin before charging a terrified Mizuki.

The chunnin was able to deal with a grand total of two clones before he was completely overwhelmed by the army of orange -clad Narutos.

Iruka watched with wide eyes as a field of Naruto clones beat Mizuki within an inch of his life and then some before he fell unconscious. Not only did Naruto display an overwhelming (understatement) amount of chakra and an ability to learn a high level jutsu on the fly, but he also showed something that he only hoped his students would learn after joining the shinobi forces.

Naruto showed the determination to not give up on a comerade or a fellow leaf shinobi no matter the circumstance. Known by some as the will of fire.

'He's gonna be a fine shinobi one day.' Iruka thought to himself as he beckoned Naruto to come to him.

As soon as Naruto stepped in front of him, Iruka untied his hitaite from his forehead and tied it around Naruto's. "Congratulations Naruto, you graduate."

Naruto grinned dumbly at Iruka, the warrior that stood before him mere seconds ago was gone replaced by the bumbling idiot that was Naruto.

"Dattebayo!" Naruto shouted, after which he began running around like a kid who just found a prize in a cereal box.

'Look at him. He just made hundreds of clones moments ago and he's not even winded.' Iruka thought with a smile before he spoke up.

"Hey Naruto, before you run off to celebrate do you mind taking me to the hospital?" Iruka said with a tired voice before he proceeded to pass out unceremoniously.

o.o.o

Iruka woke up in the konoha hospital bed with his favorite student sitting bedside.

"Iruka-sensei! You're awake!" Naruto shouted happily before he was shushed by an attending medic nin in the neighboring room.

Iruka chuckled at the young blonde. He did always end up brightening his day, whether it was his contagious smile or just his terrible pranking habit. His optimism made Iruke believe that no matter how hard the world knocked you down, there's always room to get back up. Hell, the world knocked Naruto down lower than anyone else he ever met, but the orphan always kept his head up.

"So, sensei, I was wondering… since I totally kicked Mizuki's ass and he was a chunnin, do I get promoted straight to there or how does this work?" Naruto asked in complete seriousness.

Iruka let out another chuckle. "No, sorry Naruto that's not how it works. You'll be on a regular genin squad like everybody else even though you beat a chunnin. Actually, let me clear something up for you. There are two reasons you were able to beat Mizuki as easily as you were."

"Yeah sensei I know. It's because I'm a badass and because I'm that much stronger than the teme." Naruto smugly replied.

Iruka simply shook his head before continuing "No Naruto that's not it at all. The first reason is because Mizuki has been working at the academy for a while, so he let himself fall out of shape. The second reason is even more important because it might just save your life one day. The second reason is because he simply underestimated you. He didn't know you could use shadow clones or that you could make that many. If he had, he would have tried to take you out much quicker, not giving you time to make the clones. Believe me when I say that the fact that you were the dead last at the academy may have saved your life."

Naruto soaked in every word Iruka had to say. The nurses kicked him out of Iruka's room soon after so Naruto walked down the streets of Konoha, thinking about what Iruka had just told him.

'Underestimated. Huh.'

o.o.o

An ANBU had stopped by Iruka's hospital room before he woke up to inform Naruto that the hokage wished to see him at his earliest conveniance.

"Ahh, Naruto- kun. I'm glad you could make it." The Sandaime Hokage said to Naruto as he entered the room. "I heard you were in the hospital so I didn't want to rush you." He added with a bit of concern in his voice on Naruto's behalf.

"Nahh jiji, I was only there so that I could be with Iruka-sensei when he woke up." Naruto explained to the leader of the village.

"Ahh, how is he doing?"

"Well he's awake. The doctors said he would be fine by the time genin teams are assigned."

"That's good." Hiruzen said with a chuckle of relief before lighting up his pipe. "Well onto business Naruto-kun. I heard that you caught a traitor."

"Hell yeah I did jiji! You should have seen it. That teme had no chance."

"Yes well Naruto, that's why you're here. I need you to brief me on everything that happened in between the end of the academy yesterday and right now."

Naruto nodded and began explaining what happened beginning with Mizuki approaching him about the 'second graduation exam', followed by him stealing the scroll and ending with him beating the tar out of Mizuki and the aftermath.

Hiruzen listened carefully to what Naruto had to say, acknowledging every se tence that left Naruto's mouth. He was concerned over that fact that Naruto seemed to be aware of the Kyuubi, but that was for another time.

The old Sarutobi was actually extremely proud of how Naruto handled the situation. If Naruto hadn't stood up for Iruka, Mizuki would have most likely got away with the scroll, and Iruka's life would also most likely have been forfeit.

After Naruto finished his story of what had happened last night, Hiruzen ruffled his hair and smiled at the boy. "Naruto, as you might know, there is a sizeable reward for catching a traitor to konoha, and I don't know if anyone can argue with the fact that you were the one that caught him so here is your compensation for the help. It's the equivalent of an A -rank mission pay. You've earned it." As he said that, Hiruzen handed Naruto a check.

"Thanks jiji!" Naruto enthusiastically said, happy that now his rent payment for the next year was covered. After all, he would no longer be on an orphan stipend as soon as he became a shinobi.

"Also Naruto, congratulations on graduating the academy. I knew you had it in you." The old man beamed at the future member of his forces.

o.o.o

As Naruto left the Hokage tower after his talk with the Sandaime, he found himself in a similar situation to just last week. He had an entire week off before he had to report back to the academy for genin team assignment. Naruto looked at the check in his hands, his face glowing due to how many zeroes there were on that thing.

Naruto went first to the Konoha bank in order to cash in his check.

He walked out of the bank with a wad of cash in his hand, hoping that he could find something to spend it on today. Naruto would save most of it, especially since his stipend for being an orphan was about to end.

That didn't mean he couldn't be a bit frivolous with his money.

He did just get paid for an A-rank mission.

Naruto then remembered the weapons shop he went to last week, and the nice girl he met there. Tenten was her name.

Naruto made up his mind and recalled the location of the shop.

As he walked, Naruto went through all the ways he could use shadow clones to enhance his pranking abilities.

'Well, I actually have an army to command so there should be no shortages of man power. Let's see. I could probably paint the hokage monument within half an hour now that I have all of these clones. What else. I could probably prank every clan compound in a day. I just need to make sure my clones are disguised so nobody knows its me. They won't even see what hit them. 'ttebayo.' Naruto thought to himself, excited about the potential of the new jutsu he learned.

As he was lost in thought, Naruto tripped over a box in the middle of a road. 'What on earth is this doing here?' Naruto thought as he brushed his pants off.

"Oww. Hey! Who do you think you are messing with my disguise?"

Naruto just raised an eyebrow as a boy that looked three years younger than him climbed out from under the box. 'That was a disguise?' He questioned.

"Do you know who I am? My grandpa's the hokage! Apologize to me now!" He yelled exhuberantly. While pulling out a kunai, ready to fight Naruto.

The boy had absolutely no identifiable taijutsu form, and he wasn't even holding the kunai properly. It looked as if this kid was just a civilian that watched one too many ninja movies and somehow got access to some kunai.

"Kid, I don't care who your grandpa is, but if he really is old man Hokage then he would probably be pleased that I put you in your place. You can't just get everything you want because you drop your grandpa's name." Naruto said before kicking the kunai out of the boy's hand. Naruto's taijutsu was his one saving grace in the academy. Even though he was no prodigy, Naruto was much faster than the young boy could ever hope to be at such an age.

The kid's eyes grew wide after hearing this. Nobody had ever spoken to him like that after they realized he was the Hokage's grandson. They all feared what would happen if they angered a realtive of the man known as 'the professor' and 'the god of shinobi'. Then this kid came and told him off? He was in awe.

Naruto smirked at what he just did. He put that brat in his place. Now the kid would just leave him alone and he would be on his way.

"Wait, boss. Train me!" He shouted as Naruto started to walk away.

"What? Why should I?"

"Boss you're strong! You disarmed me without lifting an hand. Train me so I can be Hokage!"

"Listen kid, if you're looking to be Hokage then you need to get in line because the hat basically has my name written all over it. Besides, I don't have time to train you. I'm a full time genin now. I have more important things to do than train a runt like you." With that Naruto turned to walk away, continuing toward the weapons shop he had been on his way to see.

"Well in that case remember the name Konohamaru because I'm gonna kick your ass for the hat someday. You're my rival now boss!" The boy called after Naruto while the latter simply waved his words off.

Naruto arrived at the weapons shop shortly after, hoping to find some cool sword or weapon of some sort that could make his fighting more deadly. As he opened the door, a bell chimed to get the attention of whoever was working there.

"Hello there son, what can I help you with?"

Naruto looked up to see who was speaking to him, disappointed that it wasn't Tenten.

"Hi, I'm just looking around." He responded before browsing around the store. The man accepted that and returned to the counter.

Naruto simply walked around some shelves until he found the section with the weapons he was looking for. He found himself in front of a wall that had over a hundred different weapons on display.

Naruto's mouth started watering at the wall, knowing that any one of the weapons on the wall could do some serious damage.

"Naruto! Hey!" He heard behind his back, as Tenten approached him.

"Tenten! I didn't think you were working. Why are you here?"

"Well I am a Konoha kunoichi. I need to restock on weapons too. Besides, It's my dad's shop so I get a huge discount." She said with a smile.

"Oh. Well I'm looking for something sharp so I can kick Sasuke's ass when we become genin." Naruto responded coolly. That actually was the main reason for him wanting a weapon. He would cut down Sasuke's high horse.

"Sasuke… isn't that the rookie of the year for your graduating class." Tenten asked.

She recalled the name. Apparently there was some sort of tragedy that had something to do with him a couple years ago. The boy was said to be some sort of prodigy.

"Listen, if he's anything like Neji, the rookie of the year from our academy class, just let him be. Neji's on my team and me and my other teammate can't touch him."

"Yeah yeah. Genius of the clan. Unparalleled. Prodigy. I'll wipe the floor with him someday. Just you wait. Your future Hokage can't be weaker than some stuck up prick no matter how talented he is. 'ttebayo!"

Tenten looked at the smug looking genin. Naruto was a nice kid and she didn't want to see him take beatdown after beatdown like her other teammate Lee did on a daily basis. Unfortunately for Naruto, some lessons had to be learned the hard way.

"Alright alright, so you were looking for something sharp. Well, here's what we got." Tenten said as as she pointed to a wall.

The two hours Naruto spent looking for a weapon, with Tenten's guidance. Naruto looked through swords, maces, staves, bows and arrows, and every weapon that caught his interest on the shelves. Tenten tried to help him choose something right for uim, and for his size but everything Naruto wanted was literally fit for a six foot tall adult.

The swords that Naruto looked at had blades that were too long to properly balance. The mace had a hilt that would not give him room to manuever. The only staff that caught Naruto's eye was a bo staff with a hidden blade that would pop out when chakra was channeled through it, but the size of the staff dwarfed him by a foot making it unusable. The bows that Naruto picked out were all longbows. Despite the fact that Naruto had the strength to taught a full size bow, he didn't have to armspan to pull the whole thing.

After the two hours of wasted labor, Tenten finally voiced what they were both thinking. "We should just give up. These weapons are all supposed to be outfit for adults. There's no way we'll find something for a runt like you."

"Oi! I'm not that short. I'm average height!" Naruto practically shouted, although he more or less agreed with what Tenten was saying.

"Besides, didn't Hokage-sama tell you to master using kunai and shuriken before you try taking up another weapon." Tenten added.

"I guess you're right. Oh well, I might as well stock up on supplies before I start going out on epic missions throughout Hi no Kuni." Naruto said with a smile.

"Yeah, then this trip won't have been a total waste of time."

"Oh, yeah. I did kinda tear you away from whatever you were doing for the last couple hours. Sorry about that. How about I treat you to some ramen?" Naruto offered his new friend.

"Don't worry about it. Today's my day off from team training and I didn't really have anything planned so I should be thanking you. I will take you up on the offer of complimentary ramen though." She responded with a grin.

Naruto smiled brightly when he heard her response then quickly went to gather some materials that he thought he would need.

Naruto grabbed another kunai and shuriken kit off the shelves as he could afford to buy another set and they could come in handy. Naruto also grabbed a spool of Ninja wire, a couple sealing scrolls, a water pouch, and a first aid kit.

He stepped up to the counter with his haul smiling to Tenten's adoptive father, who was currently working the cash register.

He started checking out all the items that Naruto brought up to him, one at a time. After he finished scanning the last item, he spoke up.

"I don't know if Tenten told you but we currently have an overstock of explosive tags, so they are marked down to half price today. I can add them if you'd like."

Naruto lit up like a Christmas tree, drooling a tiny bit when he heard of the deal.

Most stores wouldn't let him buy shinobi equient for cheap, but they were even more strict when it came to explosive tags. For some odd reason, it seemed like no one wanted Naruto to obtain them. That was why Naruto didn't even think of grabbing any explosive tags.

In this store, not only were the prices a mere fraction of what every other merchant charged him, but the man was actually encouraging him to buy them for a further lowered price.

"How many do you have?" Naruto asked, grinning dangerously.

o.o.o

"A THOUSAND!?" Tenten practically shouted. "YOU BOUGHT A THOUSAND EXPLOSIVE TAGS. DON'T YOU HAVE ANY SELF CONTROL?"

Naruto reached both hands behind his head and shyly scratched his neck. "I mean, yeah. It was a good deal. Sure it added up the cost, but I still have enough for ramen at Ichiraku's." He responded.

Naruto did overspend a bit. He was supposed to save up the money for future rent payments, but instead he just spent ninety percent of his reward money on supplies and copious amounts of explosive tags.

Worth it.

Imagine the damage he could do with just one of those. Naruto could blow up a tree, or a street, or an enemy shinobi.

Now take that damage, and multiply it by a thousand.

Are you shuddering. You should be. Naruto snickered to himself thinking of how great his shinobi career could be with a nearly endless supply of explosive notes.

Konoha was doomed.

Naruto and Tenten arrived at Ichiraku's in the late afternoon and took their seats at the counter.

"Hey old man! I have a plus one today so it'll be ramen for two." Naruto shouted, as Teuchi, the owner of the ramen stand, came out from the back room. The man chuckled happy that his favorite customer was back again while he fired up the stove to make some ramen.

"Naruto. Did you bring your girlfriend?" Ayame, Teuchi's daughter asked as she saw the two sitting at the counter. Tenten blushed at the statement that Ayame made but Naruto just waved it off as if the question didn't even phase him.

"Nahh Ayame-neechan, just a friend." He said with awave of his hand.

"If you say so Naruto." She said before winking toward Tenten who just blushed even more. "So, what'll it be today?" Ayame asked.

"I'll have four pork ramens and two miso ramens off the get go." Naruto ordered.

"And I'll have a miso ramen." Tenten said, surprised that the scrawny kid next to her could eat so much food.

Teuchi promptly got to work and he conjured up seven bowls of ramen within minutes.

As the two ate, they talked, although it was mostly Tenten enlightening the blonde with stories of her team and how they started off.

When they were finishing up their meal, Shikamaru and Choji joined them at the Ichiraku counter. Choji was surprised to see Naruto wearing a Konoha forehead protector. Shikamaru didn't seem to care in the slightest one way or another.

"Naruto, you passed the graduation exam?" the amiable Akamichi asked Naruto. Choji was always nice to Naruto throughout the academy. He was bullied a bit throughout the academy, atleast before the other students found out that he could squash them with one hand. That made him ablo to empathize with Naruto and vice versa as Naruto was more or less picked on by the entire village.

"Haha yeah, though it was on a technicality after the exam." Naruto responded with an embarassed grin.

"Troublesome" Shikamaru said before continuing. "Although I guess it's a blessing cause that means you'll be the dead last in my place. Thanks I guess?"

Shikamaru was, believe it or not, a top contender for the spot of dead last. The problem wasn't in the fact that he didn't have the talent or potential. His problem was that he refused to do anything above minimum. Because of this, he answered exactly half of the questions on ever exam. He put in enough effort that he knew would allow him to pass without a bit more. It was actually extremely impressive that he could figure out the evaluations to the point that he knew the passing threshold, but he did it nonetheless.

Shikamaru was unmatched in the art of slacking.

Naruto laughed it off "Yeah yeah. You'll see how the dead last will soon be the one handing down the orders. 'ttebayo!"

Tenten then nudged Naruto so he would introduce her to the newcomers.

"Oi, sorry Tenten. These are my two buddies from the a academy, Choji Akamichi and Shikamaru Nara." He said pointing to the plump boy and the shadow manipulator respectively. "And this is my new friend Tenten! She graduated from the academy last year and is an active genin." He said gesturing to the girl next to him.

"Pleased to meet you." She said before turning to Naruto. "Well I have to be going now. I need to take over for the evening shift at the shop but thanks for the ramen!"

"No problem Tenten! I'll see you soon he said as she walked away.

Naruto then spent a couple minutes catching up with his two friends before leaving his remaining cash on the counter and taking off himself.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Thank you all for reading.

Review, Follow, Favorite, and Review again.

Alright. There's pretty much all of the added plot before some actual canon action occurs. Which means after this, the real action FINALLY starts to occur. I can't tell you how hard it is to write a couple thousand words when there is no plot driving it yet. It's awful. I wanted to add snippets in there about some subtle changes, but I didn't want the first chapter to be 500 words so I had to spread it out and add some character development.

About the Naruto Mizuki fight, I feel like the fight in itself was good for Naruto, but I always want to increase on the badassometer. So I changed the fight and the monologue a bit.

Next chapter will be genin team selections and the test so theres that to look forward to.

Suggestions are always welcome. If I don't actually use the suggestions don't be offended. It's just that I have a vision and I don't plan on abandoning it.

Chain Naruto is bad ass.

DATTEBAYO MOTHERFUCKERS


	3. Chapter 3

Kunai and Chain Chapter 3

Iruka gave Naruto his first bit of real world advice telling him that as long as he was underestimated, he could always come out on top. Add to the mix Naruto's neat ability as an Uzumaki to form chains and a lot of stuff happens. Featuring a Naruto with the attitude of a champion and the brains of a rock. You never know what will happen when dealing with the village idiot.

o.o.o

Word that Naruto had actually graduated spread like absolute wild fire once Shikamaru and Choji found out.

Really they only shared the information with one Yamanaka Ino, but as soon as she found out, the news spread to everybody.

Thus it was no surprise to most that when genin team assignment day came, Naruto was one of the first to show up with his Konoha hitaite strapped around his forehead.

After everybody in the room settled down (mainly Ino and Sakura who were arguing over who would get the seat next to Sasuke) Iruka addressed the class.

"Welcome back to the academy for your genin team assignments. First of all, congratulations to all of you for graduating from the academy. Hopefully some of you took your first steps in regards to being shinobi this past week to try and get ahead. If not, then that's okay too."

He then picked up an envelope and opened it, pulling out a list.

"Right here I have the team assignments from the Hokage himself. We won't switch your teams just because you ask so don't even bother trying. Now listen up.

Team 1 under the jonin leader of…

Team 7 under the jonin leader of Hatake Kakashi will be Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Uzumaki Naruto.

Team 8 under the jonin leader of Yuuhi Kurenai will be Aburame Shino, Hyuuga Hinata, and Inazuka Kiba.

Team 9 is still in circulation.

Team 10 under the jonin leader of Sarutobi Asuma will be Akamichi Choji, Yamanaka Ino, and Nara Shikamaru."

The class took in their team assignments, and after some significant grumbling (mostly from Ino about her team and not being with Sasuke) they calmed down and looked up to Iruka so he could continue.

"Well, I guess that's all I have for you. If any of you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask me. Work hard and I'm sure all of you will become wonderful shinobi of Konoha." With that last statement Iruka opened the side door of the academy to let the jonin senseis in.

About half of the jonin senseis were there right from the start, but every couple of minutes another jonin would come in to pick up their teams.

After about half an hour, Naruto Sasuke and Sakura were the only three genin left in the Academy, not so patiently waiting for their jonin sensei.

After the first hour of waiting, Naruto stormed out of the room yelling that he would "FIND THAT SON OF A BITCH AND DRAG HIM BACK" only for Sakura to grab Naruto by the collar and drag him back to the room herself.

Soon enough though, Sakura too became restless, her inner personality yelling at her to attempt what she stopped Naruto from doing only moments ago.

Sasuke seemed to be the only one capable of sitting patiently and waiting for their sensei to arrive.

After a painfuly dull three hours, the door finally creaked open revealing a silver haired man with a face mask, his forehead protector covering his left eye.

"Well hello there. You must be my cute little genin squad." Kakashi started surveying his new team before his thoughts were interrupted.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Naruto and Sakura yelled simultaneously. Both of the students were seething in anger but Kakashi paid no attention to their complaints.

"Now all of you meet me on the roof in 5 minutes so we can all introduce ourselves." He said before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

Sasuke nodded before taking off after the jonin they had just met and Sakura let out an angry sigh before she followed suit.

"Gah. Im stuck with the teme and a slacker sensei. Im doomed!" Naruto thought to himself before he too followed his sensei onto the roof.

Naruto was the last to arrive to the roof and he found both of his teammates had taken a seat in front of their sensei while the latter was reading a little orange book.

"Now that everybody is here let's start off with some introductions. Why don't you all introduce yourselves one at a time." Kakashi started addressing his students.

"Introduce ourselves? Well what are we supposed to say?" Sakura responded, not knowing what exactly the jonin wanted to know. Naruto agreed with his pink haired teammate, confused about why their jonin sensei would want to know anything about them other then their skills as shinobi.

"Well, how about sharing the things you like, things you dislike, dreams for the future and maybe throw some hobbies in. You know, general information to get to know one another." Kakashi responded, as if it were the simplest question to answer in the world."

Naruto, still confused about what he asked him to elaborate further. "Why don't you go first then sensei. Tell us about yourself then."

"Me? Well my name is Hatake Kakashi. I don't feel like telling you about the things I like or the things I hate. I've never really thought about my dreams for the future. And as for my hobbies, I have lots of them. Okay your turn!" Kakashi replied with a grin under his mask.

'Well that was pointless, he only really told us his name.' Sakura thought to herself, slightly annoyed at her sensei.

"Alright then. My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like instant ramen and I really like the ramen at Ichiraku ramen stand. I hate the three minutes you have to wait for the ramen to be ready once you pour the hot water. My hobby is eating different kinds of ramen and comparing them. And my dream for the future is to surpass all the hokage and make my parents proud!"

Kakashi raised his eyebrows at what Naruto was saying. 'His parents? Does he know? This could be interesting after all.'

Naruto's speech also made Sakura and Sasuke send him questioning glances both thinking the same thing. 'I thought he was an orphan and his parents were dead.'

Kakashi shook off his surprise and gestured for Sakura to go next.

"Okay then." the kunoichi started, "Im Haruno Sakura. What I like... i mean who I like is." She glanced at Sasuke before she started giggling. "My hobbies are... well." She broke into another fit of giggles. "And my dream for the future is." She glanced at Sasuke once more, this time her face was completely red before she burst into a fit of giggles.

"And your dislikes." Kakasih encouraged her to continue although he was afraid of what he might hear.

"Naruto-baka!" She practically yelled in response to his question.

'Ahh damn it, another fangirl. These days it seems like most kunoichi out of the academy are more interested in boys than actual shinobi training. Oh well.'

"And lastly, go ahead." Kakashi said monotonously, gesturing towards Sasuke.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. Ihate a lot of things, and I don't really like anything in particular. My dream, is more of an ambition because I will make it happen no matter what. I'm going to restore my clan and kill a certain man."

Kakashi stared at Sasuke with his one reavealed eye for a moment before speaking up again. "Well that was... enlightening. Thanks for introducing yourselves. You're all unique and distinguished so that will make an interesting. We will be meeting up tomorrow for our first mission as a team. Meet me at training field 7 tomorrow at 5 a.m. and bring your shinobi supplies." Kakashi said to his students while already walking away.

"And one more thing. You should probably skip breakfast because if you don't you'll probably just puke it up anyways."

That got a surprised expression out of both Sakura and Naruto, but before they had time to raise any questions, Kakashi was already gone.

Naruto just sighed and got up. 'To be ready for that mission tomorrow I better go train some more' he concluded to himself before saying goodbye to his teammates and heading off to his training field.

Sakura seemed surprised that Naruto didn't take this opportunity to ask her out on a date like he usually did, but decided not to stare a gift horse in the mouth. Instead she turned to her other teammate Sasuke in order to ask him if he would like to join her for some dinner, only to find that Sasuke was also already gone.

'GAHHH. I WILL HAVE SASUKE SOMEDAY. SHANNARO!" Sakura's inner voice yelled.

o.o.o

Naruto arrived at his training field eager to work with his chains and shadow clones again. As far as he knew. Naruto had two skills that noone else in the academy had and there's no way that he wouldn't use them to squash his competition.

'First things first. Clones.' Naruto thought and with a couple hand seals and three words, fifty clones burst into life around him.

'Dammit, only fifty? I thought that last time i did this there were like a thousand. Then again I didn't really have all that time to count' Naruto thought to himself as he observed his soldiers appear around him. 'It's probably because it was in the middle of a fight and it was life or death.' Naruto concluded to himself before an inner voice spoke up to him.

'That and you were using my chakra to make the clones.' The fox said to Naruto through his consciousness.

'Wait. Hold on. You can talk to me without me having to go down into that sewer?' Naruto questioned the entity before another question sprung into his head. 'I can use your chakra? That's awesome!'

'Yes, to both. But here's some advice for both of our sakes. I wouldn't advise you to use my chakra that often because if someone recognizes that you have access to it, they'll probably reinforce the seal and lock me away even further. Don't get me wrong. I do love feeling the thrill of the fight when my chakra is running through you, but not when I get locked further away as a consequence.'

'Thanks Kurama.' Naruto mentally replied to his tenant before refocusing on the clones in front of him.

"Okay guys listen up. Tomorrow we have our first mission so I want to see what we can do with these clones and with these chains."

With a swift "hai" from his clones the bodies of Naruto scattered to test their new skills in conjunction with each other.

'And as long as nobody else is nearby I'm gonna make some more. Hey Kurama, I'm gonna need some more chakra for my training right now, so that I can use more clones.'

The fox didn't respond but Naruto soon felt his body almost overwhelmed with the red chakra.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu" Naruto exclaimed before almost a thousand more clones appeared before him.

"Let's get to work boys."

o.o.o

Naruto Sasuke and Sakura all arrived at the training field at five o'clock on the dot, not wanting to look bad in front of their brand new sensei.

About fifteen minutes passed before it dawned on them that Kakashi would most likely show up excessively late just like he did the day before.

"Why did we have to get this slacker for a sensei." Naruto complained out loud. "How am I supposed to become a hokage level shinobi if my sensei won't show up on time to teach me anything!" Naruto groaned.

"Yeah right? This is ridiculous. If he can't even show up on time then he probably isn't even that strong. There's no way the hokage would rely on him for actual high level missions.' Sakura replied with her own complaints about their new teacher.

Sasuke refused to vocally agree with either of his teammates as he found them both extremely annoying but he was thinking the same exact thing about Kakashi. 'With him as a sensei there is absolutely no way I could catch up to Itachi. Sasuke seethed inwardly at his luck, looking forward to seeing if Kakashi was worth his weight as a sensei or not. If not, Sasuke decided he could always go back to training on his own, as he believed that he could make good progress training himself.

As the sun began to rise, the three sat mostly in silence, with only Sakura trying and failing to spark a conversation every once in a while.

After three hours of waiting, when the clock hit eight o'clock, Kakashi finally showed his face on the training field.

"You're late" Naruto and Sakura shouted, while Kakashi shrugged in response.

"A black cat crossed my path so I had to take the long way around." He stated in reply to his students' accusations.

"Anyways, how did you sleep last night. I hope you all skipped breakfast like I recommended." Kakashi continued looking between his exhausted looking students.

Naruto paled at Kakashi's last statement. 'Oh god. I was so excited this morning that I forgot to skip breakfast!' Naruto thought to himself causing his inner demon to sweatdrop at his antics.

Kakashi's three students nodded to him and he continued. " Well, I may have mislead you three when I said that we had a mission this morning.

The three genin gave him questioning glances as he continued. "Well, when you graduate the academy, you don't actually become genin. You become genin potentials. That being said, the only people that have the power to promote you to full fledged genin is your jonin sensei, yours truly. That being said, there is an additional test for every genin squad in order for me to evaluate whether or not you three deserve to be genin. Do you all follow?"

He asked, getting a nod from Sakura and Sasuke and a confused look from Naruto.

"The test is simple. I'm setting an alarm clock for noon. I have two bells. Your task is to get a bell from me by noon. If you don't get a bell by noon, not only will I not give you a lunch," Three stomachs growled at that revelation, "but whoever doesn't have a bell will also be sent back to the academy."

Kakashi surveyed his three genin finding pleasure in their facial expressions as he revealed this all to them."

"One more thing before we begin. You all have to come at me with the intent to kill or else you don't stand a chance of getting a bell from me. Everybody ready."

Only Naruto responded with a "Dattebayo" to his question before he nodded and said "begin".

Immediately the three genin disappeared from view.

'Well at least all three of them know how to hide themselves accordingly.' Kakashi observed before he took back his assumption.

Not even five seconds of hiding passed before five Naruto's came out from the foliage yelling that they were ready to fight.

Kakashi raised his eyebrow. 'So it's true, he does know how to make kage bunshin. That's an impressive skill for a genin like him. Four clones no less is even more impressive.'

"Well your teammates had at least enough intelligence to hide and try to catch me by surprise. I can see that you must not be the smartest one of the group." Kakashi said, trying to get a rise out of the young boy.

"Sensei, I can take you out with one jutsu!" Naruto declared before making a single hand seal.

"Harem no Justu!" Naruto's transformed into busty female copies of himself that were all completely naked.

Kakashi showed no exterior reaction, but at that moment he was thanking kami for his facemask or else his entire genin squad would see the blood pouring from his nose.

o.o.o

Hiruzen Sarutobi was sitting in front of his crystal ball watching over the new genin squads that were attempting to secure their positions as Konoha shinobi.

"Hmm. I think I'll take a look at how Kakashi-kun's squad is doing." He thought to himself before training ground 7 and its contents appeared on his crystal ball.

Not even a moment had passed before The hokage was sent rocketing out of his seat due to the excessive blood bursting from his nose.

o.o.o

Kakashi was losing blood quickly from his nose so he quickly ran forward to dispose of the… distractions. Yeah… distractions.

Within moments he took care of the five Naruto's and was shocked to find that the real Naruto wasn't one of them.

While he was taking care of the clones, another ran out from behind the cover of the trees with kunai in hand, trying to get the jump on him. Kakashi, with ease circled behind the boy before he could blink.

"You know Naruto, you really shouldn't let people get behind you so easily." Kakashi stated to the young shinobi, before making a tiger hand seal.

"Konoha Hijutsu: One Thousand Years of Death." Kakashi shouted before jabbing the hand seal into Naruto's bottom, expecting the boy to be rocketed away from him. Instead, Kakashi was surprised to find that the Naruto also burst into smoke.

"Good advice sensei!" another Naruto yelled as it grabbed the jonin in a bear hug from behind.

"I got you now!" Five Naruto's yelled as they appeared next to the real Naruto who jumped in front of Kakashi.

Kakashi decided to use Naruto's jutsu against him so he quickly swapped himself out with one of the clones of Naruto right before he was about to get hit. He expected Naruto to hit his clone and then be confused on where Kakashi had gone but instead the two clones that were in teh way of Naruto's punch dispelled before any harm could occur.

Kakashi simply jumped out of the tree and waited for the blond boy's next move.

'Impressive. I heard that he learned the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu a couple days ago but he already has a beginner's mastery over the technique. He can dispel clones with ease and it doesn't distract him from fighting.

Kakashi now stood in the middle of the pack of clones when he reached into his kunai pouch.

'Oh, no. He's reaching for some type of weapon.' Naruto thought in panic as he lept away from Kakashi in order to make some space between the two.

Naruto was surprised to find that instead of a kunai, Kakashi pulled out a little orange book and started reading. Naruto sweatdropped seeing what his sensei was doing. He took this as a personal insult to his skill so Naruto made a ram seal with his hands again and this time called out "Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu".

Twenty clones erupted in a puff of smoke around Naruto, all drawing their kunai and shuriken and charging the jonin, intent on teaching him a lesson.

Kakashi simply sighed, disappointed that he barely got to read a sentence from his book.

No matter who you were, you couldn't take twenty shinobi rushing at you lightly, even if they were only on the level of Naruto.

"Naruto, you made one mistake. When I pulled out my book, you jumped back to make some distance between us but your clones stayed behind. Thats shows me that you're the real Naruto", he exclaimed before rushing through the clones at a speed only a jonin could attain ignoring every Naruto but the real one. Naruto prepared himself for the attacks of the jonin, but was only able to block on punch before a powerful roundhouse kick caught him in the side and sent him tumbling toward the river that was stationed in the middle of the training field.

Naruto struggled for a few moments as he was under water, creating four clones to hide there in case he needed a surprise attack from all sides.

o.o.o

Meanwhile Sasuke and Sakura were still watching the fight between Naruto and Kakashi from the trees.

Sakura couldn't hold back a couple gasps when she saw Naruto seemingly have the edge on Kakashi. 'When did Naruto learn to make clones? An they're solid too. When did he get so strong.' She thought to herself.

Sasuke was not too far away thinking similar thoughts. 'Naruto, is actually not doing awful.' He thought to himself. 'If I use him as a distraction then maybe I can grab the bells from Kakashi.' He thought as he began making his way stealthily through the trees to a position near where Naruto was. On his was he caught a glimpse of Sakura and another thought came to his head.

'If me and Naruto both distract Kakashi then Sakura could maybe grab the bells. Sakura couldn't fight Kakashi as a distraction because let's be honest, she wouldn't last three seconds, so she can grab them. And if Sakura gets the bells then there's no way she would give the second one to the dobe.'

Sasuke turned and headed off towards Sakura to share the plan with her.

It turned out that Kakashi was actually powerful shinobi. This was the only way that they could possibly take him out. Sasuke saw just how fast Kakashi moved when he attacked Naruto. Sasuke couldn't even begin to approach that speed and so he had gained some respect for the elder shinobi.

o.o.o

Naruto climbed out of the river, soaking wet only to see that Kakashi had already taken care of the rest of his clones and resumed reading his orange book, giggling every few seconds in a perverted fashion.

'Alright. Since using just clones won't work, I'll just have to resort to this. I practiced this for a couple hours yesterday so hopefully it'll at least catch him by surprise.' Naruto thought as he once more made his favorite hand seal.

"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" He exclaimed once more as fifty clones popped into existence around him.

'This again?' Kakashi thought as he watched the clones charge.

Unlike last time though, the clones split off to surround him, most of which gathered behind him.

"Alright clones. CHARGE!" Naruto yelled. This time though, there was no clear path to the real one so Kakashi couldn't take that route again. He sighed as he put his book away once more, keen on finding out what the blonde brat was up to. As the fifty plus clones charged him, they all suddenly raised their arms.

'Odd. He didn't use any hand seals. Why wouldn't he at least pull out a kunai.' Kakashi though, although his shinobi senses told him that there was more to it than simply overconfidence. As they approached, kakashi was beginning to doubt his instincts that there was something more to it when golden kunai connected to chains erupted from the palms of every single one of the clones.

'This...this is Kushina-senpai's chain technique. Naruto, what exactly are you capable of.' Kakashi thought in awe before he snapped out of his wonder. Kakashi pulled out a kunai and began deflecting the onslaught of chains one by one. There was barely any room to escape from the storm of an attack before he noticed a window off to one side where he could jump out.

Kakashi took this route not even thinking twice and lept backwards away from the platoon of Narutos.

Kakashi was surprised to see that the majority of the clones that were mere moments away from shredding him, were dispelled by the rain of kunai and chains. Less than bodies remained as they turned and faced Kakashi, ready to avenge their fallen comrades.

o.o.o

Sasuke and Sakura watched from the bushes as all the Naruto's began to create chains out of thin air.

'Wow. That's amazing' Sakura thought, once more wondering when exactly Naruto got so strong.

'Damn, what has the dobe been doing these past couple weeks.' Sasuke thought, seeing the solid adamantine chains for the first time.

o.o.o

They began their charge, and Kakashi only smirked 'will he never learn?' He asked himself while shaking his head. He was ready to confront them once more when he felt chains wrap around both of his arms and legs

'That… is actually very impressive. He must have used the cover of being knocked underwater to create clones that hid from me. After that, he used an attack as a diversion to direct me here to get caught. Now he has my arms bound away from each other so I can't use a replacement jutsu and he has my legs held in place so I can't jump away. Clever boy.' Kakashi thought, thinking of his remaining options.

"Well I guess there's only one thing I can do here." He said aloud as the Narutos continued to charge. Kakashi yanked on the chain that was attached to his right arm and swung it around his head before hurling the clone at the charging blondes, dispelling them all but the real body.

Kakashi then repeated the same motion with the other three clones that were holding his arm and two legs, instead slamming them on the ground to dispel.

He then looked at the bruised Naruto that was picking himself up off of the ground. 'Well i might as well finish him off so I can move on to search for my other prey.' Kakashi thought to himself as he slowly made his way to knock out Naruto for the rest of the fight.

Sasuke, who was watching from the bushes decided that it was now or never. Naruto would be no use to him if he was knocked out.

He reached for the kunai from his pouch and made his move.

Kakashi was walking slowly toward Naruto, already having taken his book out again thinking about the young shinobi's performance.

'Well in terms of taijutsu, he's at genin level. He's strong for his age, but has no real style. He just runs in blindly hoping that he can land a punch. On the other hand, his ninjutsu consists of only the shadow clone technique and his henge. The shadow clone is a jonin level technique in itself but unless he combines it with some other skills he just makes a lot of cannon fodder. I don't even have to test his genjutsu level to know that he has no skill whatsoever. The fact that he has a bijuu sealed inside him makes it nearly impossible for him to have any skill at genjutsu. Lastly, is his little ability with the chains. It's an impressive trick, but at this point it does him more harm than good as he just demonstrated. That being said, if he ever gets to a high enough level with them, like Kushina-senpai, he could be a real monster.' Kakashi thought shuddering, remembering just how terrifying the red haired woman could be when she wanted to. 'Most importantly, this kid has a real talent when it comes to battle. He might be an idiot when it comes to just about anything else, but in terms of fighting, he's a natural. He thinks ahead and can pull incredible strategies when flying by the seat of his pants. I didn't give him time to thing so that just goes to show how well he can improvise a fight.' Kakashi thought as he approaches his student.

'All in all Naruto has terrifying potential. That is, if he passes the bell test with his team.' Kakashi concluded right when he got to the boy that was still catching his breath.

Kakashi was about to move to deliver a swift chop to the neck to neck the bot out when three kunai came whistling from his right, all three catching him in the right shoulder.

For a split second both Sasuke and Naruto were wide eyed seeing how their sensei just got impaled by some kunai before a puff of smoke revealed the only casualty to be a log.

'Replacement' Naruto and Sasuke thought as they looked around for the jonin.

Sasuke approached Naruto and offered him his hand to pick him up off the ground.

"You up for round two dobe?" Sasuke asked still searching for their sensei.

"I thought you'd never join in teme." Naruto responded with a smirk.

Both of the boys tensed up as they saw Kakashi walking out of the foliage unscathed.

"My cute little genin are teaming up on me? That doesn't seem fair." Kakashi said outloud, clearly not worried about what was taking place in front of him.

"Dobe you go right, I go left." Sasuke said, ready to take out the jonin ahead of them.

"Whatever you say teme." He replied, making three more clones to go with him.

The two broke off their separate ways to flank Kakashi.

'Well at least they're finally working together.' Kakashi sighed although he was disappointed that the strategy was a simple as attack him at the same time. 'I thought that I showed with Naruto that an attack of more than one at a time is not going to work against me.' Kakashi though, slightly disappointed that Sasuke, the rookie of the year didn't think his plan through.

Kakashi waited for the to to make a move, but only Naruto charged, while Sasuke threw some kunai to the side.

'Where is he aiming for' Kakashi thought before the kunai cut some ninja wire, releasing a swinging log from his blind spot.

'A trap!' Kakashi internally exclaimed before being forced to jump toward Sasuke.

Sasuke then smirked, glad that Kakashi did exactly as expected. Using Kakashi's momentum against him, Sasuke blazed through some hand seals before yelling out.

"Katon Gokakyu no Jutsu: Fire Release Grand Fireball Technique"

Kakashi was moving at a high speed toward the fireball that was about to scorch him, but he was able to change directions quickly enough to avoid the flame, although he felt the heat on it.

'That was too close. I need to be more careful around the Uchiha.' Kakashi thought to himself. He did not expect any elemental techniques from a genin prospect. Elemental techniques were usually taught beginning at chunin level and not any sooner.

At that moment, Sasuke shot out from behind the fireball to engage him in hand to hand combat.

'He used the fireball as cover to get the drop on me.' Kakashi thought as he easily countered every punch Sasuke threw at him. 'Still, he's nowhere near fast enough to hit me even if he does have the element of surprise.

"Sasuke duck!" Came Naruto's shout from beside him.

Kakashi stood wide eyed as he saw what he would never expect.

Earlier Kakashi used Naruto's tenketsu chain in order to swing him and use him as a weapon. He did this so that he could point out a weakness in the ability.

Here he stood and Naruto was using the same exact tactic against him. Three Naruto clones were grouped together holding the fourth Naruto's chain swinging him around like a wrecking ball aimed at Kakashi's head.

Sasuke ducked down at the last moment, avoiding the chain from removing his head as Naruto flew by, fist outstretched to hit Kakashi in the face.

Sasuke watched, as if in slow motion as Naruto, the dead last of the class was inches away from landing a devastating punch on their sensei.

"DATTEBAYO MOTHERFUCKER." Naruto shouted as his fist made impact.

What ensued is not what anybody expected.

Kakashi took the punch to the face, although he barely winced. and he didn't move from the spot he stood, using the fact that Sasuke was busy dodging Naruto's attack in order to kick him square in the chest.

Naruto on the other hand was rolling around on the ground shaking his hand in pain.

'That hurt a lot more than expected Kakashi thought after he took the punch to the face.'

"Well, is that all you got?" He asked. He wouldn't ever admit to it, but Naruto really did take him by surprise right there, and if he didn't tell Sasuke to duck, Kakashi's jaw would most likely be broken. Because of the warning Naruto gave, Kakashi was able to channel chakra to his jaw at the last second to mitigate the damage.

"No way. I'd rather die than go back to that shithole of an academy." Naruto said, spitting a bit of blood out to the side before standing back up. He only took a couple hits from the jonin throughout the whole fight but each hit hurt like hell. Additionally, being used as a human wrecking ball ended up with him making a less than graceful landing as he hit the ground.

'Oh well. This should all be healed up within the hour.' Naruto thought as he surveyed his injuries so far.

Sasuke also got up immediately. He was in much better shape than Naruto was and there was no way in hell he would let the dobe show him up.

"Hell no." Sasuke responded to Kakashi's question before Kakashi disappeared in a burst of speed to land a fist, one in Sasuke's stomach and one in Naruto's.

Both boys got up once again, but this time Naruto had a grin on his face as he made clones again, this time with his eyes red, he made more than two hundred clones. Each clone reached into their pouch and pulled out a couple explosive notes.

"Sasuke, go all out. Don't worry about us." The Naruto's called, their voices getting collectively deeper.

'Kit what did I tell you about using my chakra around other people.' Kurama spoke within Naruto's head.

"Don't worry Kurama, this is my team so I have to trust them. Besides, if we don't win right now then there's no point to it anyways because we won't get to fight anyone.' Naruto replied to the beast.

'Alright, but don't go overboard.' Kurama replied once more. 'Kick his ass.'

'Got it furball.' Naruto internally replied before putting on his game face.

"Run sensei run." The one main Naruto muttered to himself before the clones all went after their leader.

Kakashi was not dumb enough to think that a punch from Naruto and and an explosive note would do the same amount of damage. So he decided on the one last option. He would run.

With that thought kakashi disappeared and started taking out the Naruto clones one by one.

He phased into view for a split second, dispelling a clone before he the explosive tag could go off.

Within a minute the number of clones decreased from over two hundred to only one hundred, and Kakashi's pace was increasing.

Sasuke was stunned with the speed and precision displayed, doing his best to follow exactly what his sensei was doing. He was squinting trying to track his moves, every couple of seconds he would throw some kunai doing his best to predict where Kakashi was going but the teacher kept speeding up. After the first ten clones disappeared Sasuke started seeing glimpses of Kakashi. After the first fifty, Sasuke could see Kakashi clearly as he ducked through the clones slowing down only to deliver a finishing blow to the suicidal clones.

Sasuke kept tossing kunai wherever he saw Kakashi appear, slowly understanding how he was moving.

Kakashi too noticed that Sasuke was beginning to track his movements, intrigued at the development.

'Looks like he's developing his eyes and he isn't even on his first ever mission.' Kakashi thought in wonder. With Sasuke being closer and closer to hitting the jonin, Kakashi was beginning to get nervous.

'Is this batch of genin really going to push me to the point that I'm actually going to have to try?' He thought dodging another kunai. 'Well atleast I'm almost done getting rid of these damn clones.' He thought. That was the moment he noticed something interesting.

The clones stopped attacking him. The clones started looking around for any sign of Kakashi, as there were only fifty clones left.

Kakashi decided that this was a good time to take a breather so he stopped moving, seemingly appearing in the middle of the group of clones.

"What's next?" Kakashi said coolly as if nothing that happened so far even phased him.

"Aww fuck this." The real Naruto said before he gave the order for every single one of his clones to explode.

Naruto jumped high up into the air to avoid the explosion.

Kakashi, wide eyed that his student would actually decide to blow up the entire training field followed suit as an enormous explosion took place underneath him. Kakashi, paying attention to how his students were moving was still wary of Sasuke who was outside the range of the explosion. He knew that Sasuke was dangerous with ranged attacks so when he jumped he positioned himself so that Naruto was in between himself and Sasuke. That way Sasuke wouldn't throw an attack his way.

"Dobe dodge" Sasuke called, sending out a large fireball at his sensei anyways.

Kakashi started to look worried, not for himself but for Naruto who was literally directly in the path of the superheated ball as it headed to intercept Kakashi mid jump.

Naruto didn't seem worried though. As soon as he heard Sasuke's warning he rolled midair to face the forest and shot out a chain at one of the trees. The kunai embedded itself in the bark pulling Naruto to safety leaving Kakashi as a sitting duck to get fried.

Kakashi expertly wove through some hand seals before saying "Suiton Suidan no Jutsu: Water Release Water Bullet Technique."

Kakashi expelled water from his mouth, not to cancel out the fireball heading his way but instead to reposition himself to avoid the fireball and fall into the river.

"SAKURA NOW" Sasuke yelled to Naruto's surprise and Sakura jumped from the river to try to cut loose the bells from the disoriented Kakashi's waist. Her kunai sliced through the strings holding the bells but before she could grab them they fell into the river.

"Noo! The bells" She shouted before jumping in after them to try to grab them before they disappeared with the current. She was swimming around frantically when Naruto and Sasuke both jumped in to join her in her search, not paying any attention to Kakashi anymore now that the bells had been cut.

Little did they know that Kakashi was standing on the shore of the river, completely dry and without a scratch on him holding the two bells.

"Looking for these?" He asked looking at his three students searching frantically through the water.

All three of the genin looked up to see their sensei holding the two bells, once more with his little orange book out.

"No way." Sakura shouted.

"After all that we couldn't even get a single bell." Naruto said, a hint of despair reaching his voice.

"We never stood a chance." Sasuke added, finally realizing that the man before him was on a completely different level than any of them.

"Oh my cute little genin," Kakashi said not looking up from his book, "look on the bright side. Atleast you all pass!"

o.o.o

Naruto walked back from the training field alongside his two team mates. Sakura was in a fantastic mood due to the fact that she wasn't going to be separated from her precious Sasuke-kun.

Sasuke on the other hand was not in a good mood at all. Actually, Sasuke had spent the entire walk back so far going over everything that they did in order to get the bells from Kakashi. Well actually he was going over everything he and Naruto did. Sakura really didn't do anything other than hide until the very end. Her role could have honestly been played by a shadow clone of Naruto's. Sasuke realized that even if he didn't ask Sakura to help, she probably would have run in blindly earlier to try to help him and wouldn't have done anything productive, although it would have gotten them to pass earlier.

Teamwork. That was the entire test. To see if they would work together well? Well they only passed because he tried to take advantage of Naruto as a distraction, although maybe Kakashi had a point.

Kakashi was on a completely different level than him, Naruto and Sakura combined.

Itachi was apparently on a completely different level than Kakashi seeing as Itachi was an S-rank missing nin which was leagues above the average jonin.

Sasuke finally settled on the thought that he would give Kakashi a chance, because so far he'd proven to be a very skillful shinobi.

Sasuke tuned back into the conversation his team mates had been having right when Sakura decided to ask him out for dinner again.

"Hn. No, I have to go train." Sasuke responded to her before deciding to go back to the Uchiha grounds on his own. It was one thing to be forced to be teammates with those two, but there was no way Kakashi would force him to be friends with them. Yet.

With those seven words, Sasuke turned away and jumped up to the rooftops to return to his home.

"Wow. Does he always ignore you like that?" Naruto asked, genuinely confused as to why she would continue chasing after the boy if he showed her no compassion, before realizing he did the same exact thing with her.

Sakura took offense to this and lashed out with a right hook to Naruto's face, giving him a mouthful of asphalt.

"What do you know about love Naruto-baka." She yelled at him, furious that he would bring that up.

"Sorry Sakura-chan. I didn't mean it like that. I just… nevermind." He said as he looked away.

Sakura looked up to him and actually felt a bit bad for how she had lashed out. Especially after the beating Naruto took fighting to get the bells from their sensei. Truth be told, Sakura had actually gained a lot of respect for Naruto watching the way he fought. The way he was fighting, it was hard to believe that Naruto was the dead last of the academy graduating class. She was about to apologize to Naruto for hitting him like that before they ran into team eight and team ten, both of which seemed to be celebrating.

"Hey forehead! Did you guys pass your sensei's test?" Ino shouted out from down the street.

Sakura decided to let the name calling from Ino slip this one time and responded calmly.

"Yeah Ino, we did." She said the smile from earlier growing on her face. "Did you guys?"

"Our parents worked together and were legendary for their teamwork so it would be crazy if a little bit didn't rub off on us."

Kiba then butted in explaining how they succeeded against their sensei, although after a couple of seconds no one was listening as it was pretty obvious Kiba was overselling himself.

"Ano, N-n-naruto-kun. A-are you okay?" Hinata asked softly as she walked up to her childhood crush, noticing the many scratches and bruises on his body, some of which looked very painful.

"Yeah yeah Hinata, I'm fine. Kakashi-sensei was really tough to fight but we passed the test so it's all okay." Naruto responded with his confident voice. He was bummed that after the entire fight against their sensei, he only got a single hit off on him that the jonin barely appeared phased by. That worried him, but as disappointed in himself as he was, there was no way he would let that show.

"Well we're all going to this barbecue place to celebrate so if you guys want to tag along you can." Choji said inviting Naruto and Sakura in between handfuls of chips.

"Yeah, you should come! And where's Sasuke-kun. He should come too!" Ino added to Choji's invitation.

"The teme went back home. Seems like he had enough of being around people for one day, but I'll go." Naruto said before receiving another punch from Sakura.

"Sasuke-kun went back to train some more but I would love to come too." Sakura replied before all eight of the genin walked together in the direction of the barbecue restaurant.

o.o.o

As the eight of them sat around the table, eating their fill of barbecue, Naruto looked around at his peers. Everyone was happy and having a good time. There was laughter and the genin were sharing stories of what happened on their first day. Even Shino spoke up every so often to add on to the blatant boisterous stories of Kiba. Hinata talked to everyone at the table, even Naruto which was interesting because she was always shy and reserved.

Ino and Sakura didn't say a single insult to him all day. Shikamaru of course fell asleep at the table but you could tell he had been having a good time because he was able to relax with his best friend after a tough fight in the morning.

Naruto looked around and realized that he could get used to this.

'Is this what it's like to have a family and people that care about you.' Naruto asked himself. 'Because if it is then I won't let anybody ever destroy my new family. Dattebayo.'

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Well there's the first ever fight of the story.

Give me your opinion. It's also the first fight I ever wrote so I know it is a bit shaky at times but I'm doing my best here.

In case you didn't realize, I don't like a smart Naruto, but that is vastly different than someone with good battle instincts. Naruto doesn't necessarily plan ahead but he has the ability to improvise mid battle very well which makes him a good shinobi regardless of how many jutsu he knows or what skills he has.

Sasuke unlocked the sharingan really early, but he doesn't know it yet, and he won't know it for a while.

In this fic I'm gonna make Sasuke and Naruto's fighting styles really different but they will be for the most part at the same level.

I want them to be rivals and they will stand out as excellent shinobi, but nothing crazy.

What else.

Umm I won't make Sakura useless but it will be a while before she has any real impact.

If anyone has any suggestions then let me know.

If you guys want me to write out a numerical score for everybody's shinobi abilities then I can do that too. Kinda like the one on Narutopedia.

Read and Review my friends. Oh and follow and favorite too. And then you should probably review again because that would be nice. Reviews keep me alive people/

Dattebayo Motherfuckers.


	4. Chapter 4

Kunai and Chain Chapter 4

Iruka gave Naruto his first bit of real world advice telling him that as long as he was underestimated, he could always come out on top. Add to the mix Naruto's neat ability as an Uzumaki to form chains and a lot of stuff happens. Featuring a Naruto with the attitude of a champion and the brains of a rock. You never know what will happen when dealing with the village idiot.

o.o.o

Naruto arrived at the designated training field at eight a.m. sharp as instructed by his sensei. Unfortunately, said sensei was nowhere in sight.

"Well looks like sensei's late again." Naruto said as he approached his two teammates that were sitting against a tree stump impatiently.

"Who does he think he is?" Sakura shrieked earning a cringe from both Naruto and the ever stoic Sasuke.

"Hn." Sasuke added, agreeing with Sakura's outburst.

"Well, it is training right, so we can get started without the lazy bastard right?" Naruto asked his comrades, starting immediately with his stretches as he eyed his teammates.

Sakura looked like she was about to voice her disapproval before Sasuke surprisingly lifted himself up from his spot and began to mimic Naruto's stretches.

"Dobe. What was that you did yesterday?" Sasuke asked, hoping that he could conceal his eagerness and intrigue. After Sasuke had returned home the previous night he had spent a lot of time thinking. He sparred against Naruto in the academy many times and although his general skills and form were far from perfect in their match against Kakashi, he showed up. Naruto was the only one of them that seemed to actually surprise their jonin adversary. His clones were much more useful than the clone technique taught at the academy, and then the chains were an even bigger surprise.

Sakura perked up at the question her crush had asked the blonde and added onto it. "Yeah. I've heard of solid clones, but what were those chains that came out of your arms. Iruka-sensei never mentioned any kekkei-genkai or jutsu that resembled that."

Naruto looked to his two teammates. He hadn't expected them to actually show interest in his abilities. Sakura, for maybe the first time ever wasn't mad at him or yelling. She was actually interested in what he had to say. Sasuke, despite trying to hide it was also obviously eager to hear his answer.

"It's no big deal really. I couldn't do the normal clone technique so I learned this solid clone technique and that's how I graduated. And the chains, I don't really know. I was messing around with my chakra and then I ended up accidentally making them. I really don't know how or why I can but I can so I'm gonna use 'em." Naruto said with a smirk. He liked being listened to without being made fun of.

"Dobe. Fight me." Sasuke suddenly said which got an 'eep' in response from the pink haired kunoichi.

"This is a bad idea. Kakashi-sensei could be here any minute and what if we have a mission this morning and you get hurt." Sakura replied in protest but was simply brushed to the side as Naruto took off his supply pack and the jacket to his jumpsuit.

"You're on teme. Try not to get hurt." Naruto said grinning like a fool.

"As if you could hurt me dobe." Sasuke said slipping into his signature taijutsu stance.

Naruto in response slid into his own brawling stance.

The boys nodded and sprang forward, ready to test their teammate and prove their superiority.

Naruto dug a kunai out of his pouch and Sasuke did the same as they approached each other. Sakura was worried for Sasuke, even though she truly believed that he was the strongest genin in the village. Naruto seemed to get hurt all the time and walk it off so there was no reason to worry for the class clown. Sasuke wouldn't actually hurt him now that they were teammates… or would he.

As their kunai were about to clash a sudden puff of smoke appeared and two arms shot out, reaching for each of their arms that were holding kunai, using their momentum against them to hurl the two in opposite directions.

"Sensei!" Sakura squealed in surprise before collecting herself. "I told them not to fight but they wouldn't listen. I swear!" Sakura shouted, hoping to at least save herself from the scrutiny of their new sensei.

Kakashi sighed before he looked over the two that were currently brushing themselves off and picking themselves off the ground.

"Well, I was about to help an elderly old lady cross the street, but instead I had to rush here because I sensed my students were about to get in a fight." Kakashi said sternly addressing his two male student.

'Yeah right. He was probably wandering around so he could show up late like he did the last two times.' Sakura thought dismissing her sensei's scorn.

"Alright so what are we doing today Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked, hoping he would get to do something exciting.

"Well, I was going to start this group with missions right away…" Kakashi started, being interrupted by Naruto's shout of excitement, "... but since you two were in such a hurry to get in a fight, I think we might just start off with some training instead." Kakashi finished, to which Sakura visibly deflated.

"Gahh my orphan stipend runs out this month. I NEED MISSIONS TO PAY RENT NOW."

"Well you should have thought of that before you two decided to pick a fight." Kakashi coolly responded. "Now that that's decided, you two can go ahead and spar now." He said as he pulled out his orange icha-icha book and started to giggle.

"But sensei, you just reprimanded them for fighting not even fifteen seconds ago." Sakura practically shouted.

"Since I'm technically your supervisor, I could get in trouble if my cute little genin are caught sparring unsupervised. As long as I'm here, I'm not liable for any accidents so you can do whatever now." Kakashi said before turning back to his book. 'Well, I'm actually really interested in how this turns out. From what I saw, they should both be at an almost even level. We'll see if I'm right about these two.' Kakashi pondered without lifting his one uncovered eye from the pages before him.

He could keep tabs on them without letting them know he was paying attention. Besides, from what he knew about Sasuke from his files, he would try to show-off if he knew his sensei was paying attention. At least if he just thought it was just a spar with his teammate, he would be fighting for his own pride and wouldn't do anything showy to risk a loss.

From what Kakashi knew about Naruto from his file and his own observations, Naruto would give it his all no matter what. To him appearances didn't matter, as was made evident yesterday when he tried to use the sexy jutsu on him. For Naruto, a win was a win, no matter how it was achieved.

The two boys grinned once more and took off to meet each other in the spar.

The air rushed past Naruto's ears as he sped to his opponent, and they met halfway, kunai releasing a clang as they intercepted each other mid air.

Once they were within arms distance, they lashed out at each other with the blades in hand and their feet, hoping to catch the other off guard one way or another. Naruto would aim for Sasuke's legs to catch him off balance but Sasuke was just that much faster than Naruto that he could jump over his sweeps and counter with a hit of his own. Naruto would then throw a punch while Sasuke was in the air, knowing well that he couldn't dodge while he was falling in the air, and Sasuke would just grab the blonde's arm to use as leverage and swing himself out of the way of danger.

Despite the fact that Naruto was aware that Sasuke outclassed him in taijutsu alone, the blonde continued his relentless assault. Punch after punch, kick after kick, the blonde only hoped to wear away the raven haired boy's defenses.

While most of Naruto's overt attacks were easily dodged, a few still managed to catch the Uchiha by surprise, although with his speed and reflexes, he would still pull off a block to avoid damage.

Unfortunately, blocking was not a good option for Sasuke, as he quickly learned because even if one of the blonde's jab's were blocked, they still pushed him back each and every time. In this case, blocking didn't mean avoiding damage. It meant taking a slightly smaller amount of damage, which still hurt like hell.

'When did the dobe get this strong?' Sasuke wondered in the heat of the spar, whilst landing another kick on Naruto's chest, pushing him back five feet, finally putting a stopper on his reckless assault.

Sasuke wasn't worried. Even though it appeared like the blonde shrugged everything off, he still did take damage from every hit. And eventually it would all catch up to him. And it was clear that the dobe was taking much more damage than he was.

Sasuke reengaged his blonde opponent with more vigor, hoping to end it before he himself took too many hits.

o.o.o

"Go Sasuke!" Sakura shouted from the sidelines as she watched her teammates duke it out. Just because she was a kunoichi now did not by any means imply that she had to stop her fangirl tendencies.

Sakura was happy to see that Sasuke had the upper hand in the spar but she had to admit to herself that Naruto was not completely embarrassing himself like he always did in the academy. In all honesty, she knew there was no way that she could keep up with her blonde teammate as he was now.

"Who would you say is winning right now Sakura?" Kakashi asked his student, little orange book still in hand. He wanted to see what the girl thought of her teammates. In the academy report on one Haruno Sakura, Kakashi found that she was a genius by many standards, one of the most intelligent students to come out of the academy in a long time, but he had to know how her knowledge transferred to the field. If her intelligence could be applied to analyzing shinobi battles.

"Well Sasuke-kun is winning obviously. Naruto hasn't gotten one clean hit off on him and Sasuke has gotten more than a few good hits onto Naruto." Sakura responded to the question. She was in awe at how Sasuke moved. Naruto was faster than her, sure, but Sasuke wasn't getting hit. He was on another level completely in terms of speed. In addition to that, he just seemed so graceful in her eyes. Weird, calling Sasuke graceful, but he was. He could weave and avoid most of what Naruto threw at him with just speed but he also moved with a practiced rhythm. The movement came naturally to Sasuke, whereas Naruto seemed to just wing it. The blonde was clearly flying by the seat of his pants, hoping to land a hit but taking so much punishment in return.

"Well technically you're right." Kakashi said to his student. And she was. Naruto didn't get a single hit off without it being blocked while Sasuke had landed multiple punches onto the blonde. The Uchiha was moving at a faster tempo altogether so it was an easy conclusion to come to. "That is, Sasuke is winning for now." Kakashi added on.

"Huh?" Sakura said questioningly, wondering what her sensei could possibly be thinking that would turn the match around. "Sasuke was the top of our class, rookie of the year. He's probably the strongest genin in the village. There's no way he can lose!" Sakura stated, firmly believing in what she was saying to her superior.

Kakashi let out a chuckle at her confidence in the Uchiha. Pshhh, strongest genin in the village? There was no way. Kakashi thought back to team Gai and their genin. Then according to gai, his clone had never beaten the Hyuuga kid in a spar before. Those two were on a different level than Sasuke entirely and they were both still only genin. Say what you will about Gai, but he did know how to train his genin.

"Well let me put it this way Sakura. What would you say are Sasuke's strengths?" Kakashi asked.

"Well he was the academy's best taijutsu user by far. I don't remember him ever losing a spar back then. And other than that he knows some fire jutsu and I think he can break out of genjutsu already so he's pretty strong all over." Sakura said thinking over her experiences with the Uchiha. She knew about the fire jutsu because he used one in the fight against Kakashi the day before but also because she once snuck into the Uchiha compound and watched him train before he spotted her and kicked her out. And she knew about the genjutsu because once her, Ino, and a few of the others from the Sasuke fan club recruited one of the active genin kunoichi to put a genjutsu on Sasuke to make him spend the whole day with them. He caught on and ran away though. He also didn't go to the academy for a whole week after that to avoid the people that had just assaulted him.

"Well there you go. Sasuke is well rounded, but as you said, he excels at taijutsu. Now Naruto. Strengths? Weaknesses?" Kakashi questioned.

"Naruto was the dead last at a lot of the stuff in the academy. I guess he was pretty good at taijutsu, only losing to Kiba and Sasuke, but other than that, he was really an awful student." Sakura responded.

"No, think broader. Not just the academy, but think to yesterday how he fought."

"Oh. Do you mean the solid clones? Or the chains?"

"Exactly. Naruto is pretty good at taijutsu, but Sasuke is a prodigy. Naruto more than makes up for that in his ninjutsu. As of right now Naruto is holding back a lot and he just might be able to overwhelm Sasuke is he goes all out." Kakashi said explaining to the kunoichi. 'Although Sasuke also has a trump card. I just don't think he knows about it yet.'

The girl was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact that Sasuke, who looked like he was dismantling, actually might lose. The longer she watched the fight, the more she noticed. Every time Naruto landed a punch, Sasuke would stagger back a bit despite the block. On the other hand whenever Sasuke landed a punch, Naruto would brush it off with only a mild cringe of discomfort on his face.

Moments ago it looked to her as if Sasuke was in a league of his own, but now she could see that he wasn't destroying Naruto. He was simply outpacing him.

Kakashi took a glimpse of his student's puzzled face before once more focusing his eyes on his book and his mind on the action before him.

o.o.o

Sasuke engaged the blonde with more vigor and pace than he had before, ready to end the short battle that had taken place.

To say that the two exchanged blows would be an overstatement. Maybe at first they had exchanged blows, but now Sasuke had sped up to a point that Naruto could no longer keep up with. For every time Naruto lashed out with a punch or kick, Sasuke would retaliate with a combo of two or three. Every time Naruto would attempt to dodge, Sasuke used his movements against him and hit him even harder.

Whereas at the beginning of the spar, Naruto took three hits for every time he hit Sasuke, now Naruto managed to land a punch once every ten hits from his opponent.

Sasuke picked up the pace and Naruto was gradually falling behind.

Of course in terms of taijutsu, where Naruto was concerned, speed did not mean knockout power. Sasuke could hit him over and over but one hit was never a game changer for someone like Naruto. He was hit so much in his life that if there was one thing he knew how to do well, it was brushing off a punch. Naruto could walk off a hit better than probably any genin and chunin alike in Konoha but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. In fact, with every hit Naruto would slow down just a little more. Not that it would be noticeable to most people watching, but it was noticeable to those who knew what to look for.

Naruto couldn't match Sasuke punch for punch. Well at least not if there was only one of him.

The blonde took a lot of punches in the latest skirmish against his teammate and he had enough so he jumped back to create some space and immediately launched some kunai at his opponent in order to prevent Sasuke from attacking him before he could get his jutsu off.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)"

Naruto made his most familiar hand seal and fifty clones popped into life around Naruto.

"Now let's see how you like being smacked down, huh?" Naruto antagonized his opponent before giving his clones the signal to apprehend his teammate.

Sasuke ran.

He ran like hell.

One Naruto was trouble enough but fifty of them was too much. Even if he could take care of most of them, only two or three punches from someone as strong as Naruto was all it took for an actual knockout, and he didn't want to risk it. So he ran.

o.o.o

Kakashi just gave Sakura a look as if to say "I told you so."

o.o.o

Sasuke ran, and as he ran, he took in his surroundings to see if there was anything he could use to his advantage, and he spotted something that fit exactly what he needed. Sasuke followed the river that flowed through the middle of the training field and ran alongside, knowing that the clones wouldn't be able to catch up to him because he was faster, although he was still sweating how just how close behind they were.

Sasuke finally found what he had been looking for and crossed the bridge that led him to the other side of the river, the clones of his teammate not far behind him.

"I've got you now dobe." He whispered under his breath before turning around and spewing out a large fireball at the cones that were in a narrow line along the bridge.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)"

The fireball was aimed true and began burning the clones to a crisp before they each popped out of existence.

That is before the clones began systematically diving off of the bridge left and right and swimming across.

'Welp. Didn't expect that. Shit plan B then.' Sasuke thought as he began engaging the straggler clones in taijutsu. At first fighting the clones went swimmingly for him. He had no problems as the first batch came at him, but as they kept coming, and more and more started attacking him simultaneously, Sasuke was hitting his limit just dodging the blonde army's attacks, let alone dispelling any of them.

As it so happened, his fireball had destroyed twenty of the clones and he had gotten to another five before the remaining clones began to converge on him and he was overwhelmed.

It took everything he had to avoid getting hit, and not only that, but Sasuke had to repeatedly turn around so that he could cover his own blind spot. Talk about a nightmare.

Sasuke continued dodging, and after about thirty or so seconds of hellish evasion Sasuke finally noticed an opening on one of the clones that he didn't hesitate to take.

Sasuke rushed to the clone and with as quick chop to the head displaying a precision that came with practiced ease, the clone disappeared out of existence. Sasuke spent a split second too long mentally celebrating his victory that was about to become short-lived.

Normally, for any other shinobi it would be much more efficient to land a hit on their opponent in a place that would temporarily disable the like a chop to the neck, or a jab at one of his joints. Or even a swift kick to the leg in order to reduce mobility. Every half decent shinobi knows these kinds of things. Unfortunately for Naruto, he did not have to benefit of 'knowing things' so his clone tackled Sasuke into the river.

And all of the rest of the clones jumped in right afterwards to try to push their advantage.

Meanwhile, the real Naruto who had fallen behind earlier to check on the injuries Sasuke had landed upon him was just crossing the bridge over the river now, watching as his clones jumped into the river to lay a beating down.

Unfortunately for the Narutos, water made the move much, MUCH, slower.

In the water, Sasuke peeled the one Naruto off of his back, reeling that he had let the dobe get a cheap shot like that in but he quickly twisted the arm of the Naruto on his back, putting him in enough pain to make him dispel himself.

After the initial threat was taken care of, Sasuke dispelled every one of Naruto's clones in the water one by one. While he was in the water, Sasuke took advantage of the fact that the clones moved slower to the point that he could easily take them apart. It was odd. to him it seemed that now that they were moving at that speed, Sasuke could suddenly see all the openings in the attacks of the clones. It was as if they had become predictable.

Sasuke took care of the last few clones and swam to the edge of the water where he saw Naruto standing and watching about twenty yards away. He pulled himself out of the water and gave the blonde a small glare that replaced the smirk he had plastered on his face earlier.

"Hn. Ready to give up yet dobe?" Sasuke asked, silently hoping the blonde would forfeit now.

"Not a chance teme!" Naruto shouted as he once more made the ram seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu)" He shouted and fifty clones popped into existence behind him. "You took care of the first fifty, how about fifty more?" Naruto yelled maniacally as his clones charged his Uchiha teammate.

Sasuke braced himself as the clones charged him, but as soon as the first one reached him, everything slowed down. The clone jumped in with a reckless punch for his face. Typical Naruto. Normally he would just duck to the side and counter with a hit to the stomach or kidneys, but this time, Sasuke noticed the momentum of the clones, and how he could redirect it at his other adversaries. So Sasuke did just that and eliminated three clones in one move.

As the clones all converged upon him once more, he no longer felt the pressure of being overwhelmed by the clones. Instead he was… calm?

He wasn't afraid of getting hit anymore because now there wasn't a possibility of getting hit. He could see it all coming, every single blow the blonde intended to land upon him, but more importantly he could understand what was the best path to take in order to avoid it.

Sasuke's perception had seemed to slow down entirely to the point that everyone including himself was moving in slow motion.

Every movement of the clones was highlighted, and it seemed like his eyes were drawn to every single weak point and opening he saw.

The Uchiha didn't doubt his instincts, so after seeing the opening before him clear as day, he refused not to act upon them.

Immediately the tide of the battle turned. Sasuke was no longer on the defensive like he had been against the previous batch of clones. His eyes were moving at five times the speed of his body and he could perceive everything his opponent was attempting to do as soon as he started doing it.

Kick to the chin of one clone, a punch to the solar plexus of the next. Dodge the strike of a clone coming up to the right of him. Counter with a roundhouse kick. Get a glimpse of how the clones behind him were moving. Predict their attacks as they were making them. Kick back to eliminate the most imminent threat. roll under another punch to get to an area less crowded with clones.

One by one, the clones were disappearing, and they didn't even stand a chance of landing a hit on the Uchiha.

Naruto just stood and watched in awe as Sasuke seemed to be turning the tables on him before his eyes. From what he saw earlier, Sasuke was no match for his clones when they were attacking as a group, but now even with fifty of them clustered around, hungry for a beatdown, he couldn't lay a hand on the Uchiha.

Boy was he glad that he decided not to join his clones in the fight because their demise all seemed extremely painful.

'Shit. So how am I gonna play this.' Naruto thought to himself going over his options.

 **Don't look at me. I'm not helping you fight a genin.** The giant chakra entity contained in his gut decided to voice.

'It's not like I was asking you for your help you dumb furball. I can take care of the teme all by myself for your information.' Naruto responded with ire at his literal inner demon.

 **Yeah. Looks just like it. If that's what you call him killing a hundred of your clones without looking too out of breath.**

Easy for you to say when all YOU have to do is step on someone to kill them. You're seriously huge.

 **And you're not tall enough to even look most of your comrades in the eye.** Kurama responded with a bit of humor in his voice.

'Oi! I'm not that small for my age. We can't all be hundred foot tall monster you know' Naruto mentally shouted at his captive.

 **You're still a runt.**

'And you're not helping! I still need to find a way to beat the teme!'

 **I told you, I'm not helping with that.**

'Then let me think you damn fox!'

As Naruto was attempting to come up with a plan Sasuke was finishing up with the clones. What started as fifty quickly dropped down to ten, but just because there were less enemies did not mean that Sasuke was about to slow down. Every second a clone would face its demise, and so after a brief ten seconds, the field was once more clear of everyone but Sasuke and the real Naruto.

"How about now. Ready to give up dobe?" Sasuke asked, though this time he was hoping for a no. He'd just gotten the feel of fighting the clones, and now, he was ready for anything the blonde threw at him. He was excited to see how much farther the dead last of his academy class could push him.

"No way in hell teme!" Naruto shouted back.

Now that Sasuke finally wasn't fighting and was facing Naruto though, he noticed something odd.

"Wait, shit, why the fuck are your eyes red. Are you having an aneurysm?"

 **That's a big word for a runt like you.**

'Not now you damn fox.' Naruto thought as he focused on his adversary, who seemed puzzled by Naruto's last statement.

Sasuke turned around and looked to his reflection in the river.

'That's… that's the sharingan.' Sasuke thought in awe at his development of his dojutsu. 'So that's why fighting the dobe's clones suddenly got so much easier.'

He then turned back to Naruto with an enormous grin on his face. It was a dangerous looking grin. The kind a kid gets when they just found something they know they shouldn't have, but they decide to use it anyways.

"Dobe are you ready to see the real power of an Uchiha." Sasuke yelled maniacally.

Naruto was having none of it, but he still did more time to think of a way to beat the rookie of the year..

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu). So you beat fifty. How do you like your chances against a hundred clones?" Naruto yelled as a hundred clones did indeed appear around him.

"Big mistake dobe. These eyes let me copy any ninjutsu that I see. Get ready for this to be thrown right back at you. KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU." Sasuke shouted whilst forming the ram seal.

'POP' A clone came into existence next to Sasuke.

'POP' The clone immediately dispelled.

'THUMP' Sasuke's unconscious form hit the ground.

Naruto just watched as his teammate fell unconscious.

"Wait. SHIT HE REALLY IS HAVING AN ANEURYSM." Naruto shouted pointing to the fallen genin.

 **No he's not…**

'Does that mean I won?'

o.o.o

"Well that's my cue." Kakashi said as he heard Sasuke's attempt to make a shadow clone, immediately disappearing in a shunshin.

'What? What does he mean by that?' Sakura thought before a moment later witnessing Sasuke's clone disappear and the Uchiha falling unconscious.

Sakura watched as Kakashi appeared next to Sasuke's unconscious form picking him up.

It was then that a scary thought hit Sakura. 'Sasuke-kun… just… lost… to Naruto. That's just wrong.' She thought before Kakashi appeared before her with Sasuke still slung over his shoulder.

"Sakura go get Naruto and bring him here. It looks like we won't get to taking a mission today so I'll just give both you and Naruto something to work on while I take Sasuke to the hospital. Sasuke just has chakra exhaustion so he should be fine for training tomorrow." Kakashi said to his subordinate.

"Hai sensei!" Sakura shouted as she took off back to get Naruto.

As soon as she was gone Kakashi then opened up his mind to analyzing the outcome of the match. Both of his students had amazing potential.

Sasuke was indeed a genius and a prodigy. He was faster than any genin that was straight out of the academy as far as he could tell. Faster than both he was and Itachi was for sure, although that wasn't a great comparison because he and Itachi graduated the academy before the age of seven and Sasuke was twelve right now. But even without the speed, Sasuke's taijutsu was almost flawless. He had great for and defense, and it was clear that his taijutsu was clan based, meant to synergize with use of the sharingan. Now that Sasuke was fighting against someone on even footing, instead of someone that outclassed him, it was clear that Sasuke was far ahead of the program. When he was about to get overrun by clones, he thought calmly and made a run for the bridge where the crossing was Narrow and he could pick the clones off. After he began using the Sharingan, his speed and taijutsu all came together like pieces of a puzzle that made him even taijutsu flawless. That Sharingan was just unfair to have.

Naruto on the other hand was strong. If Sasuke's speed impressed him, then Naruto's strength and tenacity were all the more impressive. He was a rock. Sure, the academy records were correct in classifying him an idiot, but he wasn't too far gone. Kakashi could definitely whip the boy into fighting shape. Especially since he showed a real knack for on the fly strategies when fighting him. The clones were an army in of themselves, and making clones didn't wind Naruto at all. They seemed to take absolutely no toll on him in the quantity that he was making them, which was definitely a plus. He could use them more efficiently, but that was for later. Other than that, the kid had to be taught some taijutsu style because there was no way in hell he would let one of his students fight with so much reckless abandon. Kami forbid he run into someone that actually did have some real knockout power in one of their punches and he was done for.

Kakashi was brought out of his musings as his two conscious students appeared before him.

Naruto looked a little worse for wear, slightly bruised from the earlier punches he exchanged with Sasuke, but there was a lot less damage on him than there should have been.

"Sensei did you see me kick the teme's ass?" Naruto shouted hoping that his sensei would acknowledge him as the superior genin.

"You do know that you didn't knock him out. He was knocked out because he tried to use a jutsu that took too much chakra." Kakashi said sternly. Upon seeing Naruto visibly deflate at hearing that his victory over his teammate had an asterisk next to it, Kakashi smiled under his mask. Oh how he loved crushing the spirit of young naive genin. It was the little things in life that you had to enjoy.

Sakura on the other hand brightened up at hearing this. "So Naruto-baka didn't really beat Sasuke-kun then?" She said excitedly, glad that her crush was still technically undefeated.

"Nope. He beat him all right." Kakashi answered as Sakura was also saddened. Two for two. Naruto wouldn't be happy if his win wasn't completely his own and Sakura wouldn't be happy if Sasuke lost period.

"Well follow me over here" Kakashi said as he dropped Sasuke unceremoniously on the ground earning a shriek from Sakura.

"Leave him. He's a shinobi. He's tough. He's going to the hospital anyways so it won't matter if he's any more bruised." Kakashi said as he pulled the pink haired kunoichi off of the Uchiha and dragged her to the edge of the wooded training area.

"So what are you gonna teach us sensei? Some cool new jutsu? Or how to turn invisible? Or that fireball thing Sasuke can do?" Naruto asked, ecstatically jumping around hoping for his sensei to teach him something that would blow the competition out of the water.

"Today you're learning how to climb trees!" Kakashi said, almost giggling at how dejected his students looked.

"Everyone can climb trees sensei." Sakura said with a deadpan.

"Yeah. I've been doing it since I was like four." Naruto said to his superior.

"Well, it's tree climbing, but without your hands." Kakashi clarified, although Sakura was still confused as to what he was talking about.

"Oh, you mean tree walking." Naruto said, understanding what his sensei was going to show them.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "You know how to tree walk? I didn't think they went over it in the academy."

"They don't. I asked Iruka-sensei for help with chakra control and he told me that it was the first chakra control given to most genin teams. And no, I can't do it. When I was trying to figure it out I found out I could make the solid adamantine chakra chains and I sorta got really distracted." Naruto said sheepishly, putting both his hands behind his head with a grin plastered over his face.

Kakashi sighed a breath of relief. Watching genin attempt tree walking was one of the best sources of entertainment for the experienced shinobi of Konoha. He didn't want for that to be taken away from him.

"So listen up. What you have to do is channel some chakra to the bottom of your feet which will allow them to cling to the tree, or any other solid object really. If you use too much chakra then the chakra will expel and push you off of the tree but if you use too little then you'll just slide down. If you use the right amount of chakra, it'll look like…" Kakashi started walking up the tree until he was parallel with the ground "this."

"Sweet!" Naruto yelled immediately running at a tree without clinging to it at all, falling on his head.

"That's great enthusiasm Naruto but you're going to have to focus if you plan on getting this right." Kakashi said. The jonin then pulled two kunai out of his pouch and tossed them to the feet of both the genin before him. "Use those to mark your progress. I'll be back in a couple minutes after I take Sasuke to the hospital." He said, disappearing in a shunshin taking the black haired boy with him.

'Might as well get started.' Naruto thought as he picked up the kunai at his feet and got to work.

With three consecutive tries, Naruto got three consecutive bumps on his head. Naruto did not fall gracefully. In fact, Naruto didn't do anything gracefully.

Each time Naruto fell, he picked himself up, ready for another try. That was his talent. The ability to pick himself up no matter what. After about ten tries though, he was getting pissed. He had finally been able to somewhat stick to the tree after focusing but he would still rocket off after two or three steps without fail.

"Sakura-chan. Any luck? Because I'm having a hell of a hard time wi-" Naruto cut himself off as he looked to the side to see Sakura fifteen feet up the tree next to his, calmly walking higher and higher.

"SAKURA-CHAN. HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT?" Naruto practically yelled.

Unfortunately for Sakura, this ruined her focus and caused her to loose grip, slowly sliding down at first but rapidly gaining speed on her way down.

Naruto had the intelligence to atleast run to the base of the tree and catch her, hoping to get her gratitude for doing so. That is not how it played out though.

Naruto rushed and caught a screaming Sakura bridal style at the foot of the tree.

"Ahh I gotchu." Naruto said as she landed in his arms.

"BAKA. You made me fall. LET GO OF ME NOW." Sakura practically yelled, attempting you punch Naruto for distracting her, and for holding her bridal style.

'Only Sasuke-kun is supposed to hold me like this.' Sakura internally swooned.

Naruto, not having any common sense whatsoever, listened to Sakura, because if he knew one thing, it was that Sakura was scary when she was mad.

So he did as she asked and let her go, dropping her right on the ground.

That earned Naruto a Sakura style beating that left quite a few bumps and bruises. Sakura then did feel slightly bad for hurting her teammate because he was just trying to help, so she told him what she did to focus for the tree walking and then continued on her own attempts to make it to the top.

After a couple minutes of struggling, Kakashi reappeared with a lawn chair and as always his Icha-Icha book, taking a seat behind the two so he could have some first class entertainment while he read some first class literature.

'Hn. It almost seems as if Naruto is more bruised and beaten than he was when I left. Oh well, not important.' Kakashi thought as he opened his book and relaxed.

o.o.o

Naruto and Sakura ended up heading back to their respective homes at about six o'clock that night. Kakashi had informed them that normally training would be from eight until about two, and then they would do missions until around seven in the evening so they were done just a tad early today.

Sakura had gotten the hang of tree walking really quickly, and she could do it right within half an hour. Kakashi simply shrugged it off and sent her to try out water walking in the river that ran through the training field, which she also figured out completely within an hour. Sakura's problem was chakra though. The first two hours she was okay, but by the third hour, she couldn't take a single step up a tree without sliding down (she gave up on water walking at that point because she kept falling in and getting wet).

Kakashi told her to keep at it because she needed to expand her chakra capacity. What better way was there than keep using chakra when you were at your limit. It's not like tree walking consumes chakra in bursts like many jutsu, so it wouldn't cause a case of chakra exhaustion. It would just force her to control the chakra that she still had better.

Naruto on the other hand was having the exact opposite problem. He had so much chakra, that he had trouble keeping it all under control.

By the end of that night Naruto was just beginning to feel a slight drain on his chakra, after spamming clones in the morning to fight Sasuke and repeatedly expelling huge burst of chakra out of his feet whenever he failed the tree walking exercise. By the time the two genin left, Naruto was beginning to finally get the hang of tree walking, not that he could even come close to reaching the top.

Naruto reached twenty feet off the ground at the highest point after all those hours of work, but he was making progress.

Even Kakashi was surprised that a kid that had almost four times as much chakra as he did could catch on at such a speed.

The kid had determination in spades.

o.o.o

After the two genin left from their training, one of them was hungry and frustrated while the other was hungry and exhausted. That's why as the two walked down the empty street coming from the training ground, Sakura couldn't refuse Naruto's invitation to come eat at Ichiraku's ramen stand with him

Despite the long day of training, the Naruto and Sakura reached the stand in record time.

"Oi, old man! Fire up the stove. I need some ramen on the double." Naruto shouted as the young Ayame appeared out of the back room to take both of their orders.

"Naruto! Have some manners." Sakura berated her teammate only to be waved off by Ayame.

"Don't worry about it. My dad doesn't mind. Naruto's here so often that he's basically family." Ayame said in response to Sakura's outburst. "So Naruto, you're already bringing another girl here? What happened? You get tired of the other one already?" Ayame asked, teasing the young customer.

Naruto turned a dark shade of red and put both of his hands up behind his head. "No… I mean… well. No, it's not like that! She's on my genin squad so we just came after training." Naruto said without a hint of tact in his response.

Sakura also turned a shade of red that rivaled the intensity of her hair. "Yeah, that's it. It's not a date." She said, agreeing with Naruto's statement and shaking her head furiously at the thought of it being anything more.

Ayame just giggled. "I'm just teasing him, don't worry. So what will it be you two?" Ayame asked.

"I'll have the usual order of four ramen bowls. One miso, one shrimp, one chicken, and one beef." Naruto said with a smile on his face.

"And I'll just have the miso ramen." Sakura added her order before turning to Naruto. "So this other girl have a name?" She asked.

If they were gonna be eating together, it might as well not be in total silence. And this was good news. If Naruto had his sights on some other girl then maybe he would stop shamelessly hitting on her. Sure the attention was nice but seriously Naruto, get a clue.

"Hehe… she's just a friend I met that works at the weapons shop. She's a genin that graduated last year." Naruto said recalling the girl that he could actually call a friend. One of the few so far.

"Yeah. Does she have a name?" Sakura repeated.

"Oh. Yeah. Her name's Tenten. No last name. She was an orphan but she was adopted by the owner of the weapons shop."

"Tenten? Wasn't that the name of the number one kunoichi from last year's academy class." Sakura asked.

"What? She didn't tell me she was actually strong? Now I want to fight her!"

That earned Naruto a bop to the head from his teammate.

"No Naruto. You don't fight your friends just because you think they might be stronger than you." Sakura lectured.

"Well I fight Sasuke don't I?"

"Are you saying that you two are friends."

"Never with that lame ass teme." Naruto responded immediately. And he wasn't. Enemies was a more accurate description. Actually rivals seemed to fit the bill perfectly. They were rivals.

"As if Sasuke-kun would be friends with a baka like you." Sakura said matter of factly.

"Look who's talking. At least the bastard talks to me. I'm pretty sure he just ignores you whenever you talk to him." Naruto smugly replied.

That statement earned him another bop on the head.

"You don't know what you're talking about baka. Me and Sasuke-kun are meant to be together." Sakura swooned angrily at the blonde, mad that he would even bring up such a thing.

At that moment the ramen came, which was good because right now, Sakura's hunger rivaled her anger at Naruto.

Without another word exchanged the two started guzzling down their food.

Ayame shook her head as she watched them eat. 'What does that sensei of theirs do to them that would make them eat like this. For Naruto this is normal but that pink haired girl has been here before and she never ate this aggressively.' Ayame thought to herself as she walked back to the kitchen to let the kids eat in peace.

Four bowls and a couple burps later, Naruto had a satisfied belly as he watched Sakura finish her one bowl of miso ramen.

"Sakura-chan." Naruto spoke up.

"Don't start with me Naruto I'm still mad at you." She replied in between spoonfuls.

"No. Listen. I'm sorry, but I really think you're a great girl, so if the teme doesn't like you, it's his loss. It's not on you. Don't worry about what that prick thinks." Naruto finished leaving some wads of cash on the table to pay for his meal. "See you tomorrow Sakura-chan." He said before disappearing in the evening light in the direction of his apartment.

"Is he not paying for me?" Sakura mumbled sadly with her mouth still full of ramen.

"That would make it a date hun." Ayame said as she walked out of the kitchen.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Read. Review twice. Follow. Favorite. Repeat.

How are the length of these chapters working. I can make them longer or shorter based on what you all think but in my own experience, 5000 to 8000 words is a fair amount for a chapter.

Any shorter and I don't feel like there's enough content to be absorbed in the story again, but if it's longer I feel like it takes up way too large of a chunk of time to read.

Sorry it took a while to update but I've had midterms these past few weeks so I'm trying my best to update as often as I can in between murderous study sessions.

Who knows. My dreams of getting a college degree might actually come true.

Oh who am I kidding. I'm gonna drop out and be broke all my life.

Engineering is a bitch guys. It's soo much harder than high school ever was.

Anyway, enough about me. If you want to tell me something interesting about your life then tell me in a review!

That's a great idea.

Seriously, do it.

If you have any tips about the writing or content… REVIEW IT TO ME.

If you think I'm a talentless jackass who should keep it to himself **Tell Me In A Review**!

I did fail english in high school so I'm literally fighting nail and tooth to get my ideas out into the world. Who knows, I might be the next Hemingway.

And for those people who care and actually plan on following this by the update, I plan on updating every weekend that I don't have a midterm or final to study for, so that should be fairly often. Last time I updated three times in a weekend so who knows. I might just keep going.

But I would like to grant upon all thee good fortune for wasting your time on what I have to write. Thank you all.

Dattebayo Mother Fuckers.


End file.
